


The Parting of Petals

by Snowgrouse



Series: Of Roses Unfurling [5]
Category: Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Anal Gaping, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Anal Sex (female receiving), Ass to Mouth, BDSM, Bath Sex, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexuality, Caning, Canon Lesbian Character, Dominant Lesbian Character, Dominant Male Character, Double Penetration, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Female Ejaculation, Femslash, Fisting, Group Sex, Hair-pulling, Het and Slash, Heterosexual Anal Sex (female receiving), Heterosexual Anal Sex (male receiving), Heterosexual BDSM, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Anal Sex, Lesbian Group Sex, Lesbian Sex, Lesbianism, Light Bondage, Magic, Male to Female Menstrual Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple, Menstrual hurt/comfort, Multi, Older Man/Younger Woman, Open Relationships, Oral Sex, Orgy, POV Bisexual Character, Polyamory, Prostate Milking, Queer Het, Rimming, Romance, Rough Sex, Service Top, Sex Toys, Strap-Ons, Submissive Female Character, Switching, Telepathic Sex, Tenderness, The Thousand And One Nights - Freeform, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, ass to other person's mouth, heterosexual anal sex, lesbian bdsm, lesbian orgy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She dreams of embracing women: soft, voluptuous women perfumed with honey, rose and ambergris. During the day, she flushes near Halima and Gol whenever she hasn't been able to avoid them, flits restlessly even when she is in Jaffar's company. In the evenings, she corners him and demands to be loved to exhaustion, yet her dreams are filled with restless visions, punishing her for--no, she does not know what. </i>
</p>
<p>Yassamin discovers she is capable of desiring women as well as men. However, she is unsure about acting upon those desires. Jaffar is only glad to help her, every step of the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Tell them I have a headache," Jaffar says to his aides. "I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the day." 

He sighs in relief as he and Yassamin reach the cool, dark underground study; as soon as they are through the door, he shrugs off his turban and ceremonial robes. He slumps onto the dusty cushions in but his undergarments, moaning theatrically.

She spoons him, pressing her hips into his buttocks lasciviously, still blissful from last night. "Remember what you promised me tonight, husband."

He covers his face with his arm and groans. "I was not lying about the headache."

"I'm sorry." Embarrassed, she ceases her squirming, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He kisses her hand, then clasps it to his chest. "You are in love with an old man, my child; you must cultivate a little patience. I will be fine after a nap and a good bath. Come, let us rest awhile; I promise to ravish you quite thoroughly come evening."

"I am glad to hear that." To be fair, it's not as if she isn't a little tired herself from their adventure with Theo last night, from the farewell ceremonies this morning as they had sent him back home. Therefore, she, too, groans, nuzzling the back of Jaffar's neck. "I think I shall be spending quite a while at the baths tonight myself. I hurt in every single limb."

Jaffar chuckles softly. "I was quite impressed. It all went much better than I had expected." 

She hugs him tightly against herself. "I am glad to have you all to myself again, I must admit." Yet even as she says it, she feels strangely melancholic, without knowing why.

"You have always had me, my lady," he whispers, thinking her jealous. "Only you hold my heart, know that."

"I have never doubted that," she says and kisses his hand in turn. "Nevertheless, I am glad to hear you say it."

He turns around, his eyes half-closed, the corners of them crinkled from his smile. Yet there is a little melancholy to his voice, too, as he now strokes her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "If you regret what we did, tell me. We can pray and repent together if needs be, but I would not have you keep secrets from me." 

"It's not jealousy," she says, clasping his hand on her cheek. "Only it's all a little strange. Everything is the same as it was before, and yet it isn't. I--I don't know what I feel," she says, then casts her eyes down. What is this strange new sorrow now doing, taking her by the throat? She loves her Jaffar, she had enjoyed what they had done with Theo, and nothing seems to be wrong. Yet why does she feel suddenly frightened, unsure? She tells him this, clutching his hand tight, her knuckles white. "Why is it that I want to weep, husband?"

But he is already kissing her cheeks, and when the tears do arrive, he brushes them away softly with his lips. "You would not be weeping if it were not for your love for me, my child," he whispers. "Is that not so?"

She shakes her head. "I think I love you more than ever," she blurts, and it sounds so ridiculous the way she says it now, as if she is trying to justify the words to herself. Is this what an adulteress would say to her husband, trying to lull him into a happy lie? Yet what she now says is true, and that is the strangest thing: her chest hurts simply from looking at Jaffar, as if she now had even more of him to herself, having seen a side of him no other woman ever has. "How can I ever repay you?"

He bursts into laughter, blinking tears from his own eyes. "My little fool," he says fondly, kissing her forehead. "It was not a test, nor was it meant to put you in debt. It is I who am now thanking God for having been blessed with a wife so loving, loyal and true. Most queens and concubines would only ever endure their kings so that they could bear them sons. And then they would stop pretending love and spend the rest of their lives making sure it was their child who inherited the throne. Had you only seen the backstabbing in this harem in Harun's day--it was a nest of vipers!"

"And that would be the real reason you only took one serpent to your bosom, then?" she says, with a twinkle in her eye. "I cannot tell whether I should be flattered or insulted."

He purrs and glides his thigh over hers. "Choose flattery, wife; it is closer to the truth. If you want me to keep on repeating it every day for the rest of my life, I shall, gladly: no one else sits upon the throne of my heart but my queen, Yassamin of Basra."

She laughs out loud, now, entwining her fingers with his. "Yes, even as my king enthrones himself upon other men's pricks."

He leers and presses closer, rocking his hips. "You _liked_ that, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I did, very much." She moans into his kiss, flushing with arousal as she remembers Jaffar riding Theo, his ecstasy as another man's cock had sunk deep inside his body. She brings her hand between his buttocks and presses there through his silks, making him cry out in discomfort. Yet, immediately, that cry turns into a groan of pleasure and he rocks his hips into her touch, mimicking the undulations of sex. His mouth smacks off hers, his voice now thin from renewed desire.

_"Yassamin--!"_

She withdraws with a laugh. "Really, Jaffar! I never knew a man could be such a tart! I've seen dancing-boys, but you are worse, far worse."

"I think my headache is beating a retreat," he murmurs, seeming a little dizzy. "Whoever knew a hand upon the arse would be the cure?"

"Trust a sodomite to say that," she smirks, feeling her own cunny tighten with heat as he spreads his legs to invite further caresses. "I only wish I had a prick myself, not one of jade but of flesh and blood," she whispers against his cheek, kissing his ear in a tease. "To take you with all night, and if you complained of a headache again, I would just tie you down and have my way with you."

Jaffar moans in surprise, pushing her hands away, trembling in her arms. "Merciful God. You _are_ turning into me, aren't you?" he laughs, glancing down at the erection now tenting his robes. "Now look what you've done."

"You were the one who initiated me into sodomy," she purrs. "Now you are paying the price."

He sinks his hand into her hair and kisses her hungrily. "I still owe you a hundred lashes for adultery, remember. Should I add to that another hundred for buggery?"

Now it is she who moans into his mouth, deliberately turning her voice more fragile, the distressed noise he so loves to hear whenever he turns his cruelty upon her. "Deal with me as you please, master." 

"Very well, then," he laughs, nipping at her lower lip. "I'm going to do something you won't like," he croons, twisting his hand in her hair, making little sparks of pain fly from her scalp to her nipples to her cunny.

"Oh, yes? What is it?" she pants, loving this game, loving the promise of pleasure masquerading as violence.

"Remember that taste of yourself I promised you? I'm going to make you wait for it. I shall give it to you not tonight, but in a week's time."

It's as if he's thrown a bucketful of cold water over her. "No!"

He lets go of her and grins, nodding slowly. "Yes. A week of absolute celibacy. That should do the trick, shouldn't it? Allow our bodies to recover, whet our appetites, make the eventual pleasure all the sweeter?"

"But you promised!" she bunches her hands into fists and doesn't care that she sounds like a petulant child. "I'm ready now, can't you see?" she whimpers, but even as she undoes her shalwars and takes his hand between her legs, she knows it's of no use.

"But I've got a plan, my child," he says, pinching her cunny, trapping her clitoris between its lips. 

She whimpers against his shoulder. "You always say that. You just enjoy watching me suffer, don't you? I could divorce you for cruelty."

He pinches her cunny again and rubs it, nipping at her neck. "But you won't, will you?" He purrs. "Because you're a clever girl and therefore, you are _curious._ "

"I hate you," she sobs as he slips his fingers between her folds and starts to rub her clitoris, her cunny so sore from last night it's burning. She fears she will come down with an inflammation, that's how much she hurts down there, but she wants him so much she doesn't care. "I hate you, I hate you," she cries even as she pushes back into his strokes, spreading her legs for him.

"Say that again," he purrs.

He knows exactly how to stroke her, pressing her into the cushions and putting the weight of his body behind his hand, chuckling. And it is that chuckle that undoes her within seconds: "I hate you!" she yells right into his ear even as she convulses underneath him, jerks underneath him in orgasm. And the worst thing about it, the absolute worst is how the pain, the soreness makes the pleasure even keener, heavier, the moment of release stretching out longer than usual, little ripples of pain-pleasure cascading through her at the slightest movement of his hand. And he knows her too well to stop now, rubbing her until she is completely wrung out, until she is so exhausted even her frustration has settled a little.

Smug, he finally lies back on the cushions and licks his fingertips. "I love you, too."

She groans and attacks him in turn, digging his cock out through the silks, stroking it with both hands. "Friday. I am not going to wait until Sunday. Give me Friday at least."

He clasps her face with both hands and chuckles into her mouth. "Friday it is, then. Never let it be said I am _unreasonably_ cruel to my mistress."

She makes to take him with her mouth as thanks, but he clasps her face again and stares into her eyes, wicked yet stern, serious. "Not until it's been in your arse."

Her cunny clenches so violently she jerks against him, her hands slipping on his cock. "I'd say that was unreasonable," she slurs, thinking of it, of how she had tasted Jaffar from Theo's cock, how they had said she herself had tasted even sweeter, and now her cunny pulses again, making her moan against his teeth. "You're such a beast, such a terrible, despicable, perverted _beast_ \--" 

And it is at that that he digs his nails into her skull and screams into her mouth, spilling over her hands, his sack jumping against her wrist. Furious, he pants into her face and fucks her slippery hands, then laughs, that self-satisfied laughter she so hates and loves. "You will love it, I promise," he murmurs into her mouth as he gathers her into his arms, "love it," as he pulls her stained hands around his waist and draws her to sleep beside himself. 

***

As beneficial as it is for her health, Jaffar's insistence on celibacy makes Yassamin as frustrated as she ever was. As she arrives at the harem baths, she kicks her clogs off with such violence they clatter loudly into the corner.

"Time of the month?" Halima chirps as she peeks through the door.

"Mind your own business."

Of course, Halima doesn't. "Everything that goes on in this court _is_ my business." 

Yassamin glares at her, but Halima enters the room nevertheless, her towel casually slung about her waist the way men wear theirs. It's not as if Halima didn't look like a boy in any case; you could mistake her for one what with her flat chest and jaw-length hair. In her own way, she is more masculine than Jaffar ever could be, now striding across the room in the manner of a warrior and sprawling next to Yassamin with the calculated haughtiness of a youth. "Let me guess. The master is in one of his moods?"

Yassamin wraps her towel tighter about herself and stares at her toes--it's better than staring at Halima's small, brown nipples, because she doesn't want to give Halima the satisfaction. Halima enjoys making people uncomfortable to assert her own dominance, and Yassamin has never liked her for that very reason. _Leave me alone, you old she-hyaena,_ she wants to say, but doesn't. "I suppose you could call it that."

"As a matter of fact, he has asked me to check upon you. He is not neglecting you, if that's what you think. He told me he was buried under work this week and asked me to keep you company in the evenings." Halima grins at Yassamin's astonished expression. "Mistress."

Yassamin scoffs. "You're lying. He knows you and I are as different as night and day." She had tried to be friends with Halima, had tried it intermittently for a year. But what would she have in common with someone who only enjoyed polo, archery and swordplay when Yassamin herself preferred books, poetry and dance? They never had anything to talk about, and she was glad to leave the rest of the harem to Halima's rule, preferring to spend her time in her own apartment or with Jaffar instead. She does have a few friends in the harem, but... ah, now, _there's_ an idea. 

"Where's Gol?" she says, mentioning her favourite deliberately to make Halima jealous. 

"Busy in the garden, as usual. She said she wanted to weed the rosebushes before sunset." Halima quirks her eyebrow at the star-shaped windows cut into the ceiling, at the darkening night. "But you know that girl and schedules. As incompatible as you and I," she quips. 

Yassamin sighs and stares at her toes again, feeling guilty, now. "I apologise. You might be right about the time of the month turning my tongue sharper." She glances at Halima, who is smirking a little, now. "What else did he say?"

Halima clasps her hand and leans closer, leering conspiratorially. "He told us to play nice."

And if Jaffar has told them to do so, Yassamin will try and take his advice. Better than spending the week arguing with Halima, she reasons. And since Gol is still busy with her flowers, Halima offers to give Yassamin her usual massage instead. Yassamin hesitates a little at first, but she truly does ache all over and has been waiting for that massage all day. Therefore, she spreads her towel over the steam room bench and lies down upon it as fast as possible, hiding her front from Halima's gaze. She has seen Halima looking at her before, the way a man looks at a woman, and does not like it one bit. But again, she refuses to give Halima the satisfaction, refuses to reveal her own nervousness. 

"Use the rosemary oil," she says over her shoulder, in the most regal tone she is capable of, reminding Halima of her place.

Yet there's nothing of the slave to Halima's grin as she now slaps the oil on her hands and leans over Yassamin. "Yes, mistress." She digs her hands into Yassamin's shoulders with force, as strong as the burliest of bath-eunuchs and Yassamin cries out in surprise. 

"Is that too hard, mistress?" Halima says, innocently, digging her hands in once more with similar pressure.

Yet that pressure is exactly what Yassamin's sore back needs; she can only groan in answer. "Strong enough to stun an elephant," she slurs. 

"You are certainly stiff enough to need it, mistress, if you don't mind my saying so. What _have_ you been doing?"

"Ask your master," Yassamin mumbles, the air pushed out of her lungs by Halima's pounding and kneading. 

Halima chuckles, a chuckle as dirty as Jaffar's own, and Yassamin presses her thighs tighter together. And as if that tremor of pleasure, a pleasure she is not supposed to feel wasn't bad enough, Halima now leans closer, her nipples pressing against Yassamin's back. "So it was _that_ kind of exercise, then, I see," Halima purrs, sliding her hands down to Yassamin's waist and kneading there. "At least he did not leave marks this time."

"Jealous?" Yassamin shoots over her shoulder. She is losing her self-control, but what else is she to do? In her vulnerable state, an offense is the best defense.

Yet, Halima but laughs, laughs from the bottom of her lungs, a knowing laughter that sends a shiver down Yassamin's spine. "Did you ever not wonder about that scar on his chest?" she says, now moving her hands to Yassamin's hips. "He tried to take me once, and if the knife hadn't glanced off his ribs, Jaffar the Barmakid would not be king, nor Halima a slave."

Yassamin's breath stops. She knows the exact scar Halima is talking about, and had asked Jaffar about it once. Jaffar had waved it off as a battle scar--close enough to the truth, then. And shouldn't she be happy, now that she knows Halima does not love him? It's what she had been fearing for so long, what she had always presumed--

"I always thought you and he..." she mumbles, still disbelieving.

"Then you were wrong, mistress," Halima says, slapping Yassamin's arse playfully. But it's not the slap that makes Yassamin cry out, no; it's the way Halima now squeezes her buttocks, spreads them. "Oh, you have been wrong about so many things."

Oh, Yassamin should have known, should have realised it earlier--this is what Halima had been after. She clutches at the towel, stiffens, but her throat is dry and no words come out. Halima leans closer and now she can feel her breath on her cunny, Halima's thumbs stroking around its lips, around her anus--and why can't she tell Halima to stop?

"My, my. He enjoys taking you like a boy, then, I see." Halima's voice is now lower, sweeter; her breathing heavier. Yassamin's cunny clenches and she wonders if Halima can see it, and she must, oh, she must from the way she now chuckles once more. "Do you want to know how I know?"

"I--"

Before she can answer, Halima has pressed a thumb to her arse, stroking there softly. "Because that's how I like to take my girls, too. Fuck them here, right here in their pretty little holes, make them just as red and as raised as yours."

And as Halima's spit falls upon her arse and she plunges her thumb inside, Yassamin finally screams, wails like she is being slain. "Stop! Jaffar will have your head!"

Halima but laughs. "I don't think so, my dear." She spits again and pushes her other thumb inside Yassamin's arse, stretching her, opening her, ignoring her protests. And despite her shock, Yassamin is so aroused, so wet she trickles onto the towel, smearing her mound and she sobs in shame.

"He will kill you, he will kill you--"

"Little fool. Do you really think anything in this palace happens without his knowing it? That he isn't watching us in his crystal right now?"

At that, Yassamin shrieks, kicks, tries to turn around, but Halima pins her in place. She struggles, but Halima is stronger, her muscles those of a wrestler, and now she sits over Yassamin with her full weight, rutting atop her. And if Jaffar is indeed watching--oh, how she hates the likelihood of it; this would be typical of him, typical!--it's difficult for her to imagine him not being deeply aroused by the sight. For now Halima rubs her cunny against her hips, her back, dragging a wet stripe across her spine, the she-hyaena marking her with her bittersweet scent. 

"He asked me to give you my _special_ massage," Halima croons, "and how could I refuse an offer like that? Hmm?" 

"God have mercy upon me," Yassamin whimpers. She turns her head to look at Halima, panting, squirming underneath her. "What did he tell you?"

Halima sucks on two of her fingers and slips them to Yassamin's arse once more. "That if I were to do this, I would have you dripping in seconds." She laughs as she pushes two fingers inside, letting the others play between Yassamin's folds. "And he was right. You really are a little sodomite, aren't you, _mistress?_ "

Yassamin howls, howls so that she chokes around a mouthful of towel, her cunny clenching again and again as Halima hooks her fingers inside of her. The bitter scent of Halima's cunny fills her nostrils and her utter helplessness, the way she is now being ravished _by Jaffar's orders_ stirs her so much she wants to die right now, die and to have the earth swallow her in its bosom. And Halima's fingers, oh, her long fingers, knowing exactly where to press, where to curl, where to give her that greatest, most sinful of pleasures--she cannot help but groan and push her cunny against the towel, to try and reach orgasm, so overheated she cannot bear it any longer. "Please, please, please--"

"Please, what?"

"Please, give me more, I--"

Halima snarls, clasping Yassamin's jaw as she rides her, moving her fingers faster. "Have you any idea how much I want to taste you?" she hisses. "To lick this little cunny? God, you smell so sweet, so sweet, like _nectar._ "

Yassamin yanks her head free and groans, grinds her hips, undulates against the towel. "Did he--did he forbid you?" And now she knows Jaffar _must_ be watching--why else would Halima restrain herself? "If he did so, he is a fool. Ignore him. Do it, Halima; I am ordering you to. Do it!"

And as Halima glides off her to kneel behind the bench, Yassamin lifts her hips, arches her back like an animal, displaying her heat. Her cunny is so heavy, so swollen from blood she can feel its lips parting, see a glimmering string of wetness dangling between mound and thigh. As Halima presses her mouth to her cunny and starts to lap at her fast, greedily, she trembles so that her knees nearly give. With a moan, she pushes two fingers inside of her own arse and milks herself onto Halima's tongue, drenching her, so close, so close. 

"Suck me, suck me, oh, God, Halima, yes, there, there, suck me--"

"That's enough!" Jaffar barks from the doorway. 

"Jaffar, you bastard, you utter swine!" Yassamin starts, trembling hopelessly as he cuts off her orgasm. 

Yet Jaffar ignores her, grabs Halima by the throat and slams her up against the wall. "I told you to only use your hands, no matter how much she begged."

Halima spits in his face. "Go to Hell."

Jaffar's eyes flash and he raises his hand to strike her. Yet, just before his hand makes impact, he slips it between Halima's legs instead and _curls it._ Halima shrieks, but Jaffar kisses her so violently her head thunks against the wall. His hand makes wet, sloshing noises, Halima so aroused from having played with Yassamin, and despite Halima's screams, Yassamin can recognise her tremors for those of pleasure. On and on, he fucks her with his hand until she sobs uncontrollably, convulsing upon his fingers, then falls slack as if he had just slain her. She hangs upon his hand as if a corpse impaled, lifeless until Jaffar pulls back and balances her against the wall.

"I hate you," Halima snarls. 

Jaffar removes his hand and wipes it on a towel, refusing to look at her. "Serve me well and I will manumit you. That was my bargain; you would do well to remember it." He looks at Yassamin up and down, smirks a little, but it's still Halima he is addressing. "However, I am a merciful master and will forgive this little... transgression, if you carry out the rest of my orders to the letter. Friday is your last chance to earn your freedom. Is that understood?"

"Yes, master," Halima mumbles, wiping her mouth, her eyes blazing with hatred.

"Good," Jaffar says, then leaves the room as swiftly as he had arrived.

Halima collapses onto the tiles, her eyes glazed, and Yassamin sees her cunny for the first time: it's flushed and full, its red and brown folds swollen, slick like some grotesque mouth. Halima is still shaking, her cunny itself trembling, beading. Yassamin does not know whether to go and comfort her, or to be sick--she chooses the third option and runs instead, knowing herself for a coward. 

That night, she does not sleep. She thinks of masturbating, but cannot find the jade toy anywhere: Jaffar has thought of everything. She has to talk to him tomorrow, but she is not sure who she is married to any longer. His brutality with Halima, his cruelty--she had seen him act harsh with slaves before, but had never seen him hurt a woman. And from the way Halima had responded to his violation, she must still carry some love for him in her heart, she must, despite all her protestations. Yet, if Jaffar had loved her, he would not have treated her with such scorn, would surely have licked his fingers afterwards to savour her? On the surface, it had seemed like a master disciplining a slave girl, yes, but everything about them had spoken of the sort of hatred only former lovers, divorcees had for each other.

When she finally falls asleep, her dreams are filled with women, stroking her, kissing her, licking her; yet Jaffar comes and snatches them away, one by one. She shouts at him but he never speaks, only stares at her, quiet and unyielding.

***

All week, Jaffar avoids her; finally, when Thursday evening arrives and he is tired from his bath, she corners him in his bedroom, pins him to the bed by the shoulders.

"Are you _possessed_ , Jaffar?" she spits. She is miserable by now, and her nearing her bleeding does not make it any easier. They have never truly fought before, and that is what devastates her--but then it was a different Jaffar she had loved but a few days ago, and her belly tightens with fear at the thought of all the things she has yet to discover about him. 

But she must know. "Answer me, Jaffar. What is there between you and Halima?"

He does not laugh, does not leer: roughly, he extricates himsef. "Nothing that would ever come between you or I."

"A coward's answer," she snaps, sitting next to him. "If you love me, you must tell me. Even if you love her, I--"

"But I don't."

"Let me finish. Whether you love her or not, it's you keeping secrets from me that I cannot bear. Why do you not trust me as I trust you?"

He pinches his brow, groaning in irritation. "I knew she wanted you, and only thought to play a little game to tease you, to see if playing with women would arouse you." He drops his hand and looks at her. "That's the truth; that's all there is to it. I shan't do it again. There, are you happy now?"

"You could have asked me." 

"I thought the element of surprise would be an aphrodisiac," he mumbles weakly, staring at his hands.

"Then you do not know women as well as you claim to do," she laughs dryly, shaking her head. "In that situation, a man would think of an adventure, but a woman would think of fidelity, of love; her first sensation would be that of shame. Did you truly think a woman's caresses would have banished the angel from my shoulder, drowned out my conscience?"

He shrugs. "Then Halima's shamelessness makes her a man, I suppose. There is hardly a woman she hasn't seduced; she does not waste time thinking about things such as fidelity or love over adventures."

"I don't doubt it."

He takes her hand and smiles. "You did enjoy it a little, however, did you not?"

She flushes scarlet. "You saw me." There would be little sense in lying. "But she frightens me, Jaffar. It was like being taken by a man." Perhaps if it had been a woman she had liked more, someone softer, less aggressive, perhaps... but no, she mustn't think of such things. "Why did you have to choose _her?_ "

"Do you mean you would have preferred another?" And now, his smile breaks into a full leer and he squeezes her hand. "Pick a girl, any girl, and I could arrange it."

She makes an indignant noise and extricates her hand, horrified. "You are _impossible._ " And yet her mind floods with images that have so far only dared surface in her sleep. Of women less boyish, with large breasts, soft bellies, wide hips, women like Gol, oh, _Gol._

"You are thinking about it. I can tell." He tilts his head, chuckling. "You accuse me of dishonesty, wife, but are you yourself not being dishonest about your desires towards your own kind? When I have been so frank with you about mine? Come. Tell me."

She lies beside him and closes her eyes, groaning. "This is different. You were mad about Theo; he was mad about you. But now you are only thinking of your own fulfillment, thinking me your entertaining-girl. I will not have it. If I am to play with a woman, at least let it be someone I desire," she says. "You know as well as I do that one cannot rush such things. One cannot force a rose to unfurl faster, remember?"

He purrs and curls up close to her. "There, you admitted there is a possibility." He kisses her cheek. "And I thought I had lost my adventuress there for a moment, the strumpet who so enjoys dressing like a boy!"

She slaps his arm. "Don't jest, Jaffar. If it ever happens, I would prefer to wait and see." She crosses her arms over her chest. "And I am still angry at you. Don't think I will forgive you this any time soon."

He kisses her shoulder. "Well, now. What could I do to earn my lady's forgiveness? Apart from taking you, of course; that will have to wait until tomorrow. No amount of sulking is going to make me change my mind about that, if that's what you were thinking."

"And that's the reason I hate you." She turns to her side so she will not have to look at his face and curls up, pouting. 

"Yes, well, I have a good mind to ravish you right now," he hisses, pressing his hips against her buttocks. "Feel that?"

She bites her lip, tired of fighting; as angry as she is at him, her body responds to his touch by instinct, her cunny tightening as she feels his erection. No woman, no man could ever touch her the way Jaffar does, undo her the way he does, to take not only her body but her soul, too, every time. And so she shivers, squirms, groans. 

"Why are you saving it up for tomorrow?"

"Because I have prepared a little _entertainment_ for you, my child." He wraps his arm around her and strokes her belly, undulating against her; the rasp of his moustache against her ear makes her feel even more helpless, hopelessly tied to his love and he knows it. "Oh, it is selfish of me, of course," he croons, "after all, the purpose is to make you even keener for me that night."

"I shan't need it," she hisses, pressing her buttocks against his cock, rolling herself against him the way she knows stirs his lust. "Please, Jaffar. Take me. Please." 

"Don't you want to hear what it is? I thought you hated surprises."

"You are a vile and miserable dog, Jaffar." She finally turns around and beats his chest with her fists. "You are no son of the noble house of Barmak, but the son of a whoremonger!"

He takes her wrists and ignores her squirming, smirking widely, now. "You wanted to know about Halima. Well. I am going to tell you now, if you'd care to listen."

She huffs and she puffs, writhing in his grip still. "If you must."

"All this talk about honesty between spouses, and you would still prefer the honesty of my prick," he laughs. "Careful, wife, you shall undo me any minute. You know what your struggling does to me."

"Tell me!" she snaps.

He lets go and hugs her against his chest, chuckling. "I told Halima I would give her a chance to earn her freedom after five years of service. Remarkably lenient of me, I'm sure you'll agree--I still feel that wound on cold winter nights, you know."

"Why did you even keep her?"

"Because she was an intelligent woman, and could easily pass for a boy. Thus, she had access to both the men's and women's quarters and could report to me on everything that happened in the palace. None of my viziers were ever her match when it came to spying--she must have saved my life half a dozen times by now." His voice turns into a mutter. "To be quite honest with you, I am not sure if I _do_ want to let her go--despite her venomous temper, she is worth her weight in gold."

Yet still, Yassamin shudders. "And is... _that_ the way you have always disciplined her? Do you do it to other girls?" She looks up into his eyes, still angry. It would be futile to ask him if he thought she approved of his methods; she doesn't know if it's jealousy or disgust at him doing such things to women that now turns her stomach. 

And he knows it, steeling his expression to the one he uses in front of his court when dispensing justice. "People are ruled by their desires, my child. You, I, Theo, Halima, everyone the world over. Do you think there was nothing political to the Byzantine affair, however pleasurable? Conversely, do you think I enjoyed disciplining that wretch of a woman? Just as I had Theo by the prick, I have Halima by the cunny. Power is power, and only occasionally does it intersect with pleasure. A queen should know that, surely?"

"I do, but it doesn't mean I have to like it."

"There, you see? I know Halima's perversion--except in her case, her true perversion is not her inclination towards women; she can hardly help having been born man-souled. No, her greatest shame is that she has never desired a man-- _apart from me._ She hates herself for it, hates herself for responding to my caresses. And thus, she has given me something to control her by."

It's absurd; she can no longer be angry with him, now that she knows Halima's passion is one-sided. However, she still feels like mocking him a little; he deserves it. "You _are_ half woman, Jaffar." She runs her fingertip over his moustache. "If it were not for this, I could have mistaken you for a eunuch."

He rubs his erection against her hip and coughs pointedly. "Ahem."

She but smirks. "Has Ahem, son of Cough ever entered Halima's... bedchamber?"

He winces. "I fear he would faint if I tried--if she didn't knife him first. I did not care to test either theory."

"And how has he stood up to the other girls when they have misbehaved?"

"What is this, a trial?" he huffs, exasperated. "Am I not entitled to what my right hand possesses?"

She casts her eyes down in shame. "You are. I apologise."

He lifts her chin. "And yet I cannot possess them. It's you who have possessed me like a slave," he says, more tender, now. "I meant what I said about being blind to other women's charms. I _and_ Ahem, son of Cough," he laughs. "Why do you think I called it a curse, you little minx?"

Tears prickle in her eyes as shame overwhelms her once more. She has been so selfish, doubting his love, when in her heart of hearts she knows he is telling the truth. In fact, now she wishes she could break her spell on him so that she would not have to be so ashamed of her own distrust. 

"I am sorry, Jaffar. I truly am, I--"

But it is then that Jaffar gathers her in his arms and kisses her, soft, long; kisses her until her tears dry, hugs her tight against himself until her trembling subsides.

"There. Is that better?" he whispers.

"Thank you," she breathes onto his lips. But there is still something in her that wants to reassure him with more than just words, to prove to him--and to herself--the foolishness of her jealousy. "I want to gift you with a woman, now," she murmurs, covering his mouth with kisses. "Fill your bed with the prettiest girls, boys money can buy, as a token of my love."

He shakes his head. "Says the woman who but days ago gave me Byzantium's finest stallion to ride upon. No, no, my love. It's my turn, now; I insist. However long it might take to find my little rose a nightingale."

She shakes her head. "It was not myself I was referring to when I spoke of a rose." And that is all she can reveal; flushing with shame, she buries her face in his robes.

It takes a moment, two for him to make the connection. " _Gol._ " He bursts into loud laughter and tickles her, runs his hands up and down her sides until she is giggling, screaming, tickling him back. "Since when did you learn Persian?" he pants in her face, breathless from laughter.

"Why, I learned it from my husband's lips," she laughs in turn, kissing him deep, and he allows her this, stroking her back, letting her make love to him with her mouth for long moments. When she pulls back, she feels drunk. "I would please you, beloved. Whatever it is that you want me to do."

"I would see you happy, have you enjoy yourself," he says, kissing her lazily, his eyes warm from lust. "Do not ever think I am forcing you."

She kisses his hand. "I shan't."

"Now, about tomorrow," he says. "Listen very closely."


	2. Chapter 2

She squirms upon her cushions, tinkling as she does, hoping her maids will take it for but the noise of her jewellery. But it is not her jewellery that now makes that softest of noises, no: Jaffar had insisted on cleaning her himself that very morning, then had offered her a new toy to prepare herself with, stretch herself with.

Smirking, he had dangled the golden egg from its chain, tinkling the bell inside of it. "You are to wear this until the evening. So that you will not forget me."

"You are not putting that thing inside of me!" She had turned around, a little rosewater still trickling out of her arse.

"But I am," he had purred, and then his mouth had been on her cunny, the egg upon her arse, her flesh betraying her as the egg had sunk inside her with but his spit, but a few flicks of his tongue. She had moaned and wailed in shame, in protest, yet the weight of the egg as it had settled inside her guts had made her stagger from pleasure, her vision flashing white.

"You are a swine; a filthy, godless animal," she had gasped, and as she had shaken upon the washroom floor, so the bell inside her had tinkled. 

He had put his ear against her buttock, made a ridiculously gleeful face. "Excellent; I can hear it still. I wonder how much noise it would make if I were to bring the cane out now?"

"Jaffar!"

At that, he had smacked her buttocks with both hands, sending her onto the floor struggling for balance, ringing and ringing upon the slippery tiles. He'd burst into laughter, but then quieted immediately to listen to her some more. "It's just as the merchant said, audible to the lover if he but knows how to listen for it," he'd purred, spooning her from behind, his cock now stirring against her thigh. "You may take it out if you need the lavatory, but must always rinse yourself afterwards. So that by six o'clock, you will be ready for me," he'd kissed her ear, "all wet and wide for me."

And at that, her cunny had clenched, clenched again, making her sob in his embrace. "You monster, you cruel, heartless dog," she had cried, clawed at his arms, but he had only hugged her close, his laughter a rumble against her back. He had slid his hand to her cunny, already wet from the pleasure of the enemas, now flushed even more from the pressure of the egg against her womb. 

"This tells me that this 'cruelty' is exactly what you love me for, wife."

"Yes," she had whimpered, turned around to steal a kiss. "Although you had better leave, my lord," she had said, entwining her fingers in his hair, panting against his face. "Lest I molest you right now."

"Six o'clock in the observation room, then," he had said and extricated himself.

And the observation room is where she now sits: there are dozens of these secret rooms in the palace, each near ceiling level, each with a window disguised by some decorative element or another. This particular one sits above one of the grander harem bedrooms--she has rarely visited Halima's quarters, so she barely recognises them at first. She'd rather not think about Halima at all, but she has to admit she is curious as to what sort of entertainment Halima is about to provide them in exchange for her freedom. Jaffar himself has not arrived yet, but least there's wine; as the maids leave, she sifts herself a cupful and sits upon the low bed. After all, there is nowhere else to sit, the room being so small that the bed fills it from wall to wall. The walls themselves are bare, whitewashed; the only piece of furniture besides the bed is a small cabinet--locked, of course. Perhaps it contains secret records of the goings-on in the harem: as a matter of fact, Yassamin finds, she would rather not know.

"Good evening, my dear," Jaffar murmurs, his lips wet upon her shoulder. 

She yelps from surprise, nearly spilling her wine; she had never seen him come through the door. "How did you get in?"

"Skill," he drawls and sprawls next to her upon the bed. 

"You are _insufferable._ "

"How is the egg?" He makes to undo her shalwars. "Let me have a look."

She slaps his hand away. "If I pushed it out with enough force, do you think I could get it to hit you in the face? Give you a black eye?"

He bursts into laughter. "So is _that_ what you have been fantasising about all day? I had thought your mind would have been filled with... pleasanter visions." He smacks her arse, sending her tinkling again.

"It was," she groans, lying down beside him, taking his hand in hers and kissing it. "But it was torture."

He kisses her gently, stroking her buttocks through her silks, murmuring softly into her mouth. "Tell me."

"It's heavy, for a start," she says, kissing him. "Heavier than you ever have been inside of me. I have had to sit down all day so that it would not fall out."

"And have you enjoyed it?"

She blushes, squirms. The pressure has made her wet, so wet that she'd had to go and mop herself several times during the day. She'd felt heated, desperate to be taken--once, when in the lavatory, she had thought of masturbating, but it had felt futile since Jaffar had not been there to see it. As much as she had hated the torture, she had not wanted to ruin the anticipation; she had denied herself release, saved it up for Jaffar to savour. And she tells him this, quivering now as her cunny pulses again and again and again, the egg tinkling softly as she rocks herself against him.

"I'll take it out soon enough," he whispers, his eyes warm from happiness, from arousal as he strokes the cleft of her buttocks. "Know that today has been torture for me, too. To think of you, to think how hot your cunny must have been, how wet, how open your arse; I can barely remember how they feel around my cock, now," he groans, slapping her behind. "Which is all the more reason I want you mad from heat when I finally take you," he says, claiming her mouth with a kiss.

"You should take me now," she murmurs, licking his mouth, her cunny now so wet it's staining her silks. "Can you smell me?"

His nostrils flare and he chuckles, combing her hair with his fingers. "Yes. Ever since I came into the room. And can you feel that?" he rubs himself against her thigh. "That's been ready for you all day, too; I have barely been able to walk. Khurshid wondered why I was stooping; he asked me if I'd hurt my back!"

She hisses and digs her nails into his neck. "I am glad you are in at least a little pain."

"My, my, my sweet," he laughs. "Aren't you a cruel little mistress tonight?"

But it is then that they are interrupted by another sort of tinkling. "Halima," he says and gets off the bed, busying himself with the cabinet. 

She peeks out of the window. It is indeed Halima, along with three other women. Yet it is not Halima who is now decked out in so much jewellery that she rattles and chimes on every step, no; Halima is dressed in male attire, as is her wont. Yassamin's breath catches in her throat as she realises it is Gol that the two maids are now escorting into the room, half by force.

"Tell them to let her go!" Yassamin hisses under her breath to Jaffar.

Jaffar backs away from the cabinet, holding its doors wide open to reveal a large red crystal inside. "Why should I, when she is the one Halima is to offer to us tonight? I had them pick her especially for you, so that you could ascertain whether you truly did desire her." 

He waves his hand and the crystal flickers with light, as if a fire had been lit inside it: Yassamin gasps as upon the opposite wall, they can now see the women reflected as if in a mirror, as if the crystal were an eye observing them right beside Halima's bed. She looks at Jaffar, astonished.

He but grins. "Aren't you going to ask me how it works?"

She looks from him to the wall, at Halima's smirk as the maids now bring Gol to stand beside her bed. "Magic, I presume," she mumbles. 

But she could not care less about the mechanics of this trick, whether optical or magical: instead, she shivers as the maids force Gol onto her knees. She barely notices Jaffar climbing in next to her; she is mesmerised by the sight of Gol, the shape of her body, that shape she has so often adored at the baths and has yearned to touch as a lover does. She wonders if Gol knows they are watching, but Halima certainly does: she orders the maids to strip Gol slowly, to serve her up as if she was a delicacy--and now, the vision flickers and they see Gol from Halima's point of view. Gol's skin is as pale as Yassamin's own, her nipples as pink as the rosebuds she was named after, her auburn locks falling onto her shoulders as the maids undo her braids. And there, between her legs, the plumpest, fattest of cunnies: a perfect, freshly shaven mound, her folds rosy and soft as they peek out from between its lips. 

"It's as if she were made of marzipan," Yassamin murmurs, not sure if she is jealous rather than desirous. 

"That's the exact thing I said of you when I first saw you in my crystal, my love. In fact, I bought Gol because she reminded me of you."

"Did you enjoy her?"

He waves his hand dismissively. "But once, years ago, long before you and I married. She did not enjoy it, the frightened virgin she was, but as you can see, she has learned quite a lot about the arts of love in the meantime." He quirks his eyebrow. "And not from men, either."

And as the maids now pull Gol into kisses, caresses, slapping her buttocks, her thighs lightly, reddening her for Halima's gaze--oh, Yassamin can tell Gol's resistance is no different from the sort she herself gives Jaffar when she wants to play the game of ravishment. Gol is flushed from more than just the slaps, those dark pink folds of hers now gleaming a little, her soft belly dipping as her breathing quickens. She moans into the maids' kisses, and just at the bottom edge of the vision, Yassamin can see Halima stroking herself through her shalwars as if she were a man, crooning with a voice as low as a man's.

"Tell me, Gol," Halima says. "Would you call yourself a faithful servant? Would you say that you loved our queen?"

Gol tears herself away from the girls' kisses, her hair flying about her face, frizzy now that it's free from its confinement. "Faithful unto death," she declares.

Halima clicks her tongue. "Good. For it is your queen's desire that you and I are to serve tonight."

Yassamin flashes a glare at Jaffar. How much does Halima know? How much does Gol know? And even if Gol had said nothing of romantic love, why does Yassamin's heart now flutter so upon hearing that declaration of loyalty? 

"Jaffar--"

He but raises his hand. "Listen."

Gol lifts her chin proudly, defiantly. "Then what is my queen's wish, mistress?"

"'Master,' I should think. Since it is your queen's wish that tonight, I should take you in the manner the master takes her."

Gol lowers her gaze and trembles, but the way her nipples now harden betrays her real reaction; she tries to tug herself free, but the maids hold her fast. Yassamin is astounded--yet, is this how she herself looks like when Jaffar promises her whippings, cruelties? Again, she wonders how much Jaffar has told the girls, and reminds herself to give him a sound thrashing, too, as soon as the opportunity arises. But the girls have seen her at the baths, have seen the bruises, the welts, the scratches left upon her body by the force of Jaffar's passion: those, and her smiles whenever the girls had asked about them, would have told them more than Jaffar ever could.

Gol takes a deep breath and looks at Halima once more. "Master, may I ask why my queen would want us to do such a thing?"

"Come, my child, we are but slaves! Is it for us to question?" Halima laughs. "Perhaps, if you perform well, I shall tell you."

And it is at that that Halima's hand dips into her shalwars and lifts out her cock. Yassamin gasps, but soon realises this prick is made of but cream-coloured leather, sewn into the shape of a cock and embossed with ridges, a masterpiece of the leatherworker's art. The head is full, fat, making her mouth water, the shaft itself even longer than Jaffar's, the leather harder, crueller than real flesh could ever be. Yet the lewdest thing about this monstrous, man-made prick is that it looks _worn._ The leather is smooth from use, and Yassamin shivers as she thinks of how many girls' cunnies, arses it must have penetrated, gleaming as it does in the evening light. 

Jaffar chuckles and pulls Yassamin into his lap so that her back rests against his chest. "Before you ask, I _made_ that particular contraption. It's built to penetrate Halima in turn, to suck upon her, thrust into her as she thrusts. But is that too much engineer talk? Am I getting ahead of myself?"

Yassamin but shakes her head, staring at the projection. "I am going to borrow it," she mumbles, darkly. "I am going to borrow it from her and I am going to ravage you, husband, whip you and then sodomise you so thoroughly you will not walk for a week--"

He dips his hand into her shalwars and purrs. "You know _exactly_ how to stir a man, my love."

She groans, her head lolling onto his shoulder, jerking as his hand meets her cunny. "What sins did I ever commit to have God punish me with a husband too perverse to torture?"

"And yet he blessed me with a wife like you. You know what they say; God gives us of his bounty far beyond what we deserve," he sighs happily and kisses her cheek, stroking her. "Watch."

As if she could ever tear her eyes away. As the girls force Gol to bend over, offering her buttocks and her cunny to Halima, Yassamin whimpers. And this whimper is one of a desire she can no longer deny: she stirs as much as she imagines a man does at this sight, blood rushing to her cunny, her mouth watering at her need to taste Gol. "She is beautiful," she moans, biting her lip.

Jaffar but chuckles and dips his fingers inside of Yassamin, letting out an intoxicated groan as he feels her pulsing around his fingers. "So you do respond to women after all," he drawls, fucking her shallowly, then sucks upon his fingers to taste her. "Shall we take a closer look?"

And in but seconds, the crystal's eye draws closer, so close that the entire wall is now but a giant projection of Gol's arse, cunny. It is an unnatural sight, frightening, and Yassamin flinches away from it, as if that giant cunny was now about to swallow her alive. But it is her lust that swallows her first: she wails as the girls begin to spread Gol, one girl now stroking her clitoris, another pushing two fingers inside of her cunny, rocking them softly. She can see every hair on Gol's body standing on end, can almost smell her, the wet smears that now gleam all over her cunny--oh, she cannot bear it.

"Jaffar, this is monstrous; it's indecent. The poor girl--"

"And yet, you love it," he purrs, stroking her faster, now, in time with the girls as they make Gol moan, fingering her so roughly she staggers. Is this what Yassamin, too, looks like when Jaffar takes her? Red and flushed and wet, the rich, white flesh of her buttocks pliant in the girls' hands as they squeeze her, knead her open, present her to Halima?

And Halima herself now throws the last of her clothes aside and moves to stand behind Gol. "I would ask you if you were ready, my dear, but I doubt that's necessary," she purrs as she presses her hips against Gol. 

But now all they can see is Halima, her flatter, thinner buttocks and the straps of the cock's harness around her hips and groin. Yassamin cranes her head to see better, and Jaffar moves the crystal's eye further away so that they can see all four women once more. Halima herself seems to remember she is being watched; she gestures for the girls to move, then arranges Gol so that her hips are in the air, her head and shoulders against the floor. She does this with such roughness that Gol squirms, struggles, cries out in indignation.

"Am I to believe this is my mistress's favourite position, then?" Gol moans as Halima sinks her hand into her hair, pressing her cheek into the carpet. "That a _queen_ should submit in this manner, and to a man so effeminate?" she laughs scornfully. "End this charade, Halima. This is nothing but your own perversion, your desire to play the man."

"Quiet!" Halima barks, yet she is still grinning. She lifts up a little so that now, Yassamin and Jaffar can see her cock sinking inside of Gol's cunny: Yassamin moans in time with Gol as Halima starts to fuck her, unceremoniously, roughly. "The master tells me the queen wants him to take her like an animal," Halima snarls between thrusts, tugging at Gol's hair. 

Gol screams, claws at the carpet, but as Jaffar moves the crystal's eye closer, they can see that she is pushing her hips back into Halima's thrusts, her cunny swollen around Halima's cock. "Strange, that," Gol groans, "I never imagined he would fuck like a _bitch._ "

And at that, Halima roars in rage, throws her hips into thrusts so violent that Gol is pushed forwards on the carpet, sobbing, howling; yet Gol is now so wet she sloshes, drops of her wetness flying out of her cunny as Halima fucks her. She screams, growls back at Halima, writhes underneath her like an animal herself.

Jaffar laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. "But that's exactly what we do! She taunts her as you taunt me. You know, I do wonder if they have both been spying on us."

Yet Yassamin is so far gone she no longer cares: she tears at her clothes until she is naked, turns onto all fours just like Gol, as if prostrating to the orgiastic scene before her. "Please, Jaffar. Take me, I cannot bear it; please, please, take me."

She is about to turn her head to beg for him once more, but then his cock slides into her cunny to the root: she screams as the egg is still inside of her guts, yet he sinks all the way inside of her so easily that she sobs in shame.

"God, you are _wet,_ " he groans, pressing his entire body against her, still fully clothed. "You'll undo me right this instant--"

"Don't you dare, don't you dare!"

But it is then that Halima takes her slickened cock out with a long, long drag, the plump lips of Gol's cunny kissing it as it withdraws, as if not wanting to let go of it. "And now for the pleasure they love the best," Halima says and gestures for the girls to spread Gol's arse, to daub oil onto it, to spread it with their fingers. "Don't give her too much oil. I want her to feel it," Halima says, stroking her cock, thrusting into her own fist, and between her thighs, Yassamin can see the mechanism of the toy as it massages Halima on the inside, the wetness that smears her inner thighs. Halima's own legs are shaking from the strain, yet still she squats atop Gol, angling her hips, clawing at Gol's sides as she slowly starts to dip her cock inside of Gol's arse. 

"You like that, don't you? Hmm?" Halima asks as Gol cries out, but Gol has no time to answer as one of the girls pulls Gol's mouth to her cunny and another moves underneath her, to lick Gol's cunny in time with Halima's thrusts. Gol _howls_ against the girls, howls, her thighs quaking, and as Halima's cock sinks in to the root, Yassamin thinks she will pass out from the pleasure of the sight. She claws at Jaffar's thighs, making guttural sounds in her desperation to have him take her harder, faster, screaming at the wall.

"Jaffar, Jaffar, please, _fuck_ me," she groans, clawing at his silks.

"You are close, I can tell," he snarls, "you're just like her, the way your cunny's now clutching around me, oh, God, now you have seen what it's _like_ \--" 

His voice straining, he lets out a small whisper, another instruction, and Yassamin can see Halima pausing a little. Yet it is Yassamin Jaffar is now speaking to, trembling so much behind her that she knows he is about to come undone, too. "Once Halima does what she is about to do, I want you to come, my love," he rasps, takes her by the hair, drags her head up with both hands, forcing her to watch. "Promise me," he hisses from between his teeth.

"I promise, I promise," she whimpers. 

But she does not have to force herself at all. For now, Halima pulls out once more, spreading Gol's buttocks wide open. And now they can see inside of Gol, inside her flesh, her arse but an open, red and slick _hole._ A sight presented only for Yassamin's sick, sodomitic pleasure, at Jaffar's command, a sight normally reserved only for the eyes of men. A woman's flesh so forced open that she cannot even close it, helplessly gaping from this most brutal of penetrations, by her own desire for it, so completely claimed, taken. It is herself Yassamin now sees, and Jaffar knows it, knows it: she wails at the grotesque sight, that scream setting off the first tremors of orgasm within her hips. 

"Yes, that's what you look like, my love, just like that, that's how open you are when I fuck you, fuck, fuck--" Jaffar snarls in her ear, his thumb on her arse, massaging the egg through it. "So open wide, so _beautiful,_ so scarlet, so wet, so open wide--"

And as Gol's flesh heaves inside of her hole, as foam like spittle now leaks out of it, Yassamin _screams._ She can barely see Halima's cock sinking back inside of Gol's arse as her eyes flip back in her head and she howls, shrieks herself into a hard, quick orgasm, the pleasure of it like knives, stabbing her through, spiking through her, tearing her open, violent after such torturous anticipation. And then Jaffar's voice joins her, bellowing, so loud she is sure the girls can hear them, but she doesn't care: Jaffar's sperm, his wonderful sperm floods her cunny, leaks out of it, and she wants to bathe herself in it. Still screaming, she throws herself frantically upon his thrusts, rocks her hips so that his sperm smears all over her cunny, gloriously abundant after so many days of abstinence. 

With a broken shout, he pulls out, and she makes to turn around, to suck and lick the sperm off him, to drink it. Yet he holds her fast, pulling the egg out so swiftly it gives her pain, tossing it tinkling into the corner. He murmurs under his breath and she wonders if this is another one of his spells, to keep himself from growing soft. "I promised you this," he groans, straining as he spits on his cock and dips it into her arse, her aching, swollen arse. "Now, _take_ it."

She chokes, coughs, gags against the cushions, her hair falling into her eyes. "Oh, God."

He laughs, a wet, rasping, ugly laugh. "Hurts, does it?"

"Yes," she moans, in sickening pleasure as her body fights him, cramping around him, making all of her break out in cold sweat. It feels awful, and it feels wonderful, but she wants to concentrate on him, only him, now that she finally has him. "Please, put out the crystal," she groans as she watches the play of sodomy before them. "I have seen enough; I only want you."

He throws his shirt off and laughs, laughs, pressing his sweat-slick body against her back. "Look more closely."

Now the sight upon the wall is darker, lamp-lit: the cock that of flesh, moving in time with Jaffar's thrusts. 

"Is that--" she gasps, and the buttocks, the wet cunny upon the wall tremble as she does. _Her_ cunny, _her_ buttocks, _her_ husband's cock now sinking into her red arse with but her own arousal, his sperm, his spit. She howls from the bottom of her lungs and watches as a bead of wetness drips out from between the giant lips of her sex, _like a peach, he had called it, a split, sticky peach and oh, and it is, it is, oh, merciful Lord--_

"Yes," he drawls, kissing her neck. "Even prettier a sight, I think you'll agree. Especially the prick."

"Jaffar, you are the vainest of men, I swear." 

He drops his voice to a pitying croon. "But it _is_ prettier than Halima's, don't you think?" He rolls his hips.

"Yes," she moans, that roll sending not one but a series of wonderful tremors through her hips. "Oh, God, it is."

"Tell me how it's prettier," he says, rolling his hips again, gathering her hair in his fists. "Tell me."

He fucks her slowly, shallowly, so that she has to squirm in his grip, desperate for more depth, more friction. "God, Jaffar." He is more beautiful, _she_ is more beautiful than the girls, his balls a wine red, flushed, gleaming from her cunny as he pulls almost completely out of her. The head of his cock peeks out from the stretched, thick ring of her arse, his sperm dribbling out of her cunny down its lips, oh--

"Tell me," he hisses in her ear, sliding his cock so deep inside of her that his balls rest against her cunny, and she can see herself clenching, twitching, sperm and arousal now sluicing down his balls. The very sight of it makes the penetration feel even more intense, now that she can see exactly how long his cock is in relation to her arse, how enormous, how monstrous.

"It's beautiful, it's beautiful, oh--"

"How is it beautiful, my child?" He pulls out a little, the muscles of her arse dragged back by the shaft of his cock. "Hmm?"

"It's so big," she moans weakly, knowing this is what he wants to hear, as pathetic as it is, something a man would instruct a slave girl to moan no matter how small the prick she was riding. But a slave is what she is, more so than Halima or Gol ever have been, a slave to Jaffar's love, slave to the pleasure only he can give her. So she groans, rolls her hips to take more of him inside of herself, moans again. "The way it fills me. It feels wonderful. Please. Please, my love, please give me more."

"Oh, no, my sweet," he says. "You need to give me more, first. What else do you like about it?"

And it's right there before her eyes: she is still in shock, awe because of the ease with which Jaffar now sinks inside of her with but their own fluids. Streaks of white now gleam upon his shaft, a little ring of foam gathering around the root of his cock, disgusting, yet a sight so arousing it makes her cunny tighten over and over, makes her very womb contract with orgasmic tremors. 

"It's so wet," she hisses from between gritted teeth. 

"But that is all _you,_ my dear," he purrs, rutting shallowly. "That's why I insisted upon the egg. Once something is kept in there long enough, your insides start to slicken a little, to eject it. Couple that with the stretch from the egg, and you have this," he whimpers through his nose, "a slide so sweet, so easy, God, it's like a professional catamite's."

She turns to glare at him over her shoulder. "Engineer talk!" 

He rolls his hips and laughs, pushing her forwards upon the bed until she yelps. "Oh, I am _so_ sorry," he croons. "You would that I never used my skills on your arse ever again? Hmm?" he chuckles and starts thrusting harder into her. "I thought you found the sight arousing," he pants in her ear, licking it. "So wet, so slick, so _delicious._ "

And at that, she wails, turning her head so that he can kiss her, so that she does not have to look at the wall, at her own perversion now wetting her mouth and swirling hot in her belly, making her cunny clench again and again underneath his thrusts. "Please, my love. Give me more."

"More of what? This?" he says, sliding one of his hands to her cunny, making her wail, twitch; she is now so sensitised her cunny trickles as he frames her clitoris with his fingers and _rubs._ She cries out upon his lips, but he keeps stroking her, plunging his cock in and out of her, the thrusts so long now that as each one hits her deep, deep, it's like a little orgasm in and of itself. Yet he does not allow her release, _she_ does not allow herself release, not when this torture is what so intoxicates him, makes him slither on top of her with such delight. She can see his teeth flashing at the edge of her vision; his voice husky, sweet from his pleasure, filled to the brim with love. 

"Is that enough, my love?" he teases, stops stroking her clitoris and drags his wet fingertips to her belly, stroking there, tracing circles around her navel until she convulses in his arms. 

"Jaffar!"

"Keep looking at yourself." Again, he takes her hair and turns her to face the wall. "That foam right there, that little ring? Is the sight of that what made you come when we watched the girls? Hmm?"

"Yes!" she sobs, tossing her head, wanting to give herself pain, yet the pain in her scalp does little to numb her shame. 

"And you wondered why none of them _tasted_ it," he hisses in her ear, "didn't you? I saw you licking your lips, saw you _drooling,_ woman. Do not lie to me. Answer me."

She sobs, pressing her hips back onto him so that his cock sinks in to the root, her cunny clenching and clenching and all she can think of is _I am smearing him, smearing him, covering him in my taste, my taste._ "I did, I did."

He murmurs happily. "I hadn't told them about the Byzantine perversion yet, you see. Would you like us to share it with them?" he asks pleasantly, letting go of her hair, changing the focus of the eye so that they now see them from his point of view: her buttocks from above, his gleaming cock sinking between them, his hips making her flesh judder with each of his thrusts. "Perhaps I shall invite the girls into our bed the next time, on either side of us, like this. _Licking_ my prick as it sinks inside your little arse. Would you like that?"

"No--yes, oh, God, oh, God--" she has to bring her hand to her cunny, to stroke herself, and now she is moaning uncontrollably, so near orgasm. 

"Which is it to be?" he says, pulling out of her completely and spreading her buttocks, and now she is as open wide as Gol was, or even wider, her arse but a deep, gaping hole. She screams, screams but Jaffar holds her open, dribbling spit inside of her, the tip of his cock slick and white from her. "Or would you rather be the slave girl? Doing this?" and at that, he bends down and the last thing she sees is his tongue, stiff, outstretched, sinking deep inside her arse, and as he pushes so deep his teeth meet her flesh, she screams and comes undone. 

But he is merciless, pushing his cock back inside immediately, no rhythm to his thrusts now, greedily taking her orgasm upon his cock. "Give it to me, give it to me, give all of it to me," he growls, smacking her buttocks as she spirals into oblivion, an orgasm more powerful than the one that preceded it: she can barely hear him now, all sounds blurring into a cacophony, for she is but convulsing muscles, ripples, reduced to but the arse and cunny upon the wall. He slips with his thrusts, erratic so that he hurts her, glancing off a too-sensitive part inside of her, but even that makes her cunny now spray, wet his balls. Pain and pleasure have no meaning, she thinks blearily; each impact of his body upon hers, whether painful or pleasurable now brings her ecstasy, makes her flood him with herself the way he had flooded her with his sperm, wash him with it.

"Let me taste myself, let me taste myself, let me taste myself," she howls, and he is there, there: from the corner of her eye, she can see herself upon all fours, Jaffar made of but pure majesty as he kneels before her, his cock that of a satyr's, as hard as bronze, white and slick from her anointing. Spit, sperm, cunny, the slickness of her guts, all white, white, white--white as her vision, white as the new, cold-and hot sharp blow of pleasure through her hips as she swallows all of the foam, all of its salt inside of herself. White, white as Jaffar's sperm as he moans low in his guts and fills her mouth, his ejaculate still so voluminous, so thick in her throat as she swallows and swallows, become but swallowing itself, full of Jaffar, Jaffar. 

And her greed does not end there, no; she pushes him down upon the bed and sucks him, sucks every last drop out of him, cleans his cock completely, drags his tangled silks off his legs until he is naked, naked. Whether he has cast a potency spell upon himself or not, she does not care: she wants more, and she will take it. The crystal has gone out but she does not care for it either; she does not need it to tell that her face is burning, that she is staring like a woman possessed as she sucks upon him, sucks, sucks, hisses, drags his cock in her fist, forcing it to remain hard for her, to serve her still. 

"Slavedriver," he moans weakly, looks up at her, but he is too exhausted: his head lolls back upon the bed and he surrenders. 

He must hurt by now, but that's only fair after the aches and pains he has given her, she reasons. Yet she does not take him yet: instead, she takes the water bowl from beside the bed, meant for the washing of hands and cleans his genitals with it, offers him a cup of wine. And all throughout, he remains silent and so does she, and she is not sure if she knows which one of them is the ruler and which one of them is the one doing the serving, now. But this is one of the reasons she loves him so, Jaffar having mixed the two until no difference remains between husband and wife.

And it is within this reverie that she spies the gleam of gold in the corner. He follows her gaze, his eyes widening as she cleans the egg, too; a quiet sob escapes his throat as he realises what she is about to do. She but lifts her finger to her lips and hushes him, pushes the egg inside of her cunny to warm it and leans down between his legs to worship. Gently, so very gently she spreads his thighs and kisses her way to his arse. She did not mop between his buttocks and she is grateful for that, loving the musty, salty richness that meets her tongue as she laps at him, kisses him there. 

He cannot keep quiet any longer, his new moan much louder, so loud it echoes off the ceiling, his hands fumbling as he spreads his thighs to allow her access. "Please, my love," he groans and there is no lechery to his voice now, no command, but a vulnerability, a gratitude, the beginnings of a sob tangling in his throat. The king is gone and upon the bed lies but a man, as tied to her love, as enslaved to it as she is to his. And her cunny pulses around the egg at this, drawing it further inside of her, the chain brushing sweetly against her slit as she rocks her hips, as she takes him with her mouth. 

"Let the crystal watch, husband," she murmurs, turning him onto his side, kissing his buttock. "I want you to see yourself." 

He moans, squeezes his eyes shut in shame--that he of all men should have any shame left in his body! Yet, his cock leaps into full hardness in her hand as he yields; the crystal flickers into life and there, their bodies appear upon the wall, magnified. She positions them so that he can watch as she licks him, he still lying on his side, she spreading his arse with her hands. "It's as beautiful as any girl's," she murmurs as she strokes his anus softly, massaging it with her fingertips. That earns her a whimper, so she continues, showing him himself, spreading him gently with her fingers, slowly pulling him open as she licks him. She pauses only to draw in breath, to sweep her hair aside so that it won't obscure the sight of him, only to scoop a little wetness from her cunny to slicken up her fingers. 

"God, Yassamin, Yassamin," he moans as he watches her spread his arse, a finger in from each side, the folds of his flesh loosening, smoothing. "Where did you learn all that?"

"From my husband," she murmurs and kisses his mouth and he whimpers louder, sucks upon her tongue to draw the taste of his arse into his own mouth. "He is _such_ an old sodomite," she laughs as she withdraws. "And I would that he stroked himself a little, now, for what I am about to do next might hurt him otherwise."

He chuckles, his face ridiculously happy as he leans back and clasps his cock. "Deal with me as you please, my cruel mistress."

She quirks her eyebrow. "You might regret calling me that, my lord."

He quirks his eyebrow back at her. "Do your worst."

"Very well," she laughs, takes the warm, slickened egg out and presses it to his anus. "Keep watching."

And as she starts to ease the egg inside with little thrusts, his moans grow truly loud, uninhibited. "God. _God._ Fuck me," he groans, in a voice as husky as a whore's. "Fuck me, Yassamin, fuck me."

"Language!" she scolds him, smacking his buttocks, yet that makes him howl even louder, fucking himself back on the egg, laughing shamelessly.

"Put it in. Come. Deeper."

"You really are a hopeless tart."

"Say that again," he hisses, rolling his palm over the head of his cock. 

She smacks his buttocks a dozen times before she gives him that pleasure: he howls underneath her blows, howls and laughs, the last howl breaking into a gasp as his arse swallows the egg entire. 

"Harlot," she murmurs, smacks him once more for good measure, right over his hole, sending him howling once more, ringing.

"Oh, God," he groans, his eyes wide as he turns around and hears the way he is now tinkling on the inside. "You are right. It's _heavy._ "

She takes his hand off his cock and lies down on top of him, lacing her fingers with his, kissing him softly. "And how does it feel now?"

He groans in delight and stretches underneath her, tinkling as he returns her kiss, taking her mouth lazily. "Wonderful."

"And now?" she says as she sits astride him, guiding his cock inside her cunny.

His answer is but another moan, his head thrown back, his hands fisted into the cushions. She rolls her hips and he moans even louder, staring down at her in disbelief. "Oh--I wish you were not on me, now--please, let me see, let me see--"

She lifts up, letting his cock slide out and what she now sees makes her moan in turn: his hips jerk and his cock _drips_ onto his stomach, pulsing thick, clear pre-ejaculate. She has seen him drip from arousal, but never so voluminously; again, he moans, his hips lift and he spurts, the sweet sap of him pooling in his navel.

_"Yassamin--"_

"Yes?" she laughs.

He but pants, staring at the ceiling. "I think--I think I just--" he lifts his head, weakly, his eyes wide like those of a baffled cat. "My love, I think I--I don't know what you have just done, but I think you have just made me come. It's--I had heard it was possible for eunuchs and some sodomites to do so without ejaculating, but--" his head lolls down once more and he groans. "Oh, merciful God. What sort of a witch have I married?"

She bursts into laughter and laps his belly clean, adoring the taste of his arousal, so much saltier and more pleasant than the taste of his sperm. "Would you like me to do it again?" 

_"Please."_

"To hear is to obey, master," she kisses onto his lips as she straddles him once more. 

And his noises are the most beautiful thing: the few times she has played with his arse, she has always been astonished by how vocal he becomes. Even at his quietest, he bursts into reverent murmurs, whispers, as if praying to her, clutching her to himself. And he does exactly that right now, his eyes closed as he holds her against himself gently, rocking into her, sighing softly against her breasts. And she kisses his face in turn, kisses his graying temples and the receding hairline he is always so embarrassed about, covers him with her love. 

"The lord of my days," she murmurs, the kingly title never having meant as much to her as it does now, now that it has become real, now that his love rules over her every second, her every minute, her every hour. 

And he pours his love inside of her, so wet she is still stunned by it, even horrified that he might be emptying his bladder inside of her, but no, no; his sap is so slick inside of her, bathing her womb, as slick as her own as he drips out of her, down to his sack. Deliriously, she wonders if this is what women like Halima feel when rubbing cunny against cunny; a woman's wetness is the only thing she can compare it to. 

She laughs, shakes her head, nuzzling his nose with hers. "My wonder of wonders, my man who is a woman," she murmurs, "my husband who is my wife."

He laughs and takes her hand, kisses it. "Says the one who is now claiming me like a man. Come, let me see you take your pleasure of me, my king," he says, his eyes flashing with a desire keener, sharper. "Let me feel that little cunny tighten around me."

She makes a mock-appalled face. "Oh, the old rake is back, I see."

"But I thought you liked it when I poured filth in your ears," he says, running his hands down her sides, then slapping her hips, clasping them tight. "Come. Ride me."

And she does, dancing upon him, using his cock the way he wants her to use it, ride it in the way that pleases her most. Like this, when they have already made love and she is open, hot and wet; so that he does not hurt her with the way he now penetrates her so deep, at such an angle. She loves to lean low over him, so that she barely moves on top of him, only undulating a little, the head of his cock pushing against her womb sweetly, gently. The release that now takes her is but a series of soft waves, tremors, leaving her utterly relaxed: so she keeps riding atop him, not in a hurry to leave. And even as she presses her face to his shoulder, she can feel him grinning as he watches her through the projection. He spreads her buttocks to look at her arse, brushes it with his fingertips from time to time, massages it. 

"Why on earth did I never think of this before?" he slurs, drunk from pleasure.

"I shall put it inside you every time we make love, now," she says, kissing his cheek.

"I don't mean the egg, although you are welcome to," he grins. "The crystal. Look over your shoulder, my beautiful, look. Yes, isn't that wonderful?"

She takes in the fat lips of her cunny around his cock, her arse gleaming and swollen from being so well-loved, the beauty of his cock spreading her, now wetter than ever before. "It is," she smiles, "and I would that you watched yourself again."

She can feel his cock leaping inside of her. "Are you going to do what I think you are going to do, my queen?"

"Turn around," she says and meets his leer as he turns onto all fours. "Comfortable?" she asks, making sure he can see past his shoulder, see his arse, the chain now dangling from it like a golden tail.

"Mm-hmm," he murmurs, rocking his hips, sending his tail swinging. 

Yet she catches it and presses a soft kiss to his buttock. "Stroke yourself."

He does as he is told, sighing happily. "There might not be much left inside of me, if that's what you are hoping for."

"As long as it gives you pleasure, my lord," she says, twirls the chain around her finger and tugs playfully. 

"Go on."

And now, she looks at the wall rather than him, greedy for this sight of him, aroused by it far more than she was by the sight of Gol or herself so stretched. She finds herself trembling, her cunny clenching in orgasmic aftershocks as she plays with his hole, watching the muscles unfold themselves around the golden egg. She does not pull it out immediately but keeps playing with it, pulling it out to its widest part and then pushing it back inside once more, loving Jaffar's howls, the way his cock pulses and drips at this sweet torture. 

"You _are_ a cruel mistress, my love," he moans, slicking his cock with himself, his entire skin covered with goosebumps, shivering from arousal. 

"Again, I am but what you have taught me to be, husband," she laughs and pulls the egg out to its widest part once more, the ring of muscles now completely smooth, distended around it. And she cannot help herself: she has to lick, lap at the gold now bulging out of his hole, lick the flesh that has so far been hidden within tight folds. And there, she finds more salt, finds more musk, a dizzying, dark, heady taste that makes her moan.

And that moan, that lick is what undoes him for the last time; his ejaculation is now but a trickle, dribbling onto the sheets, but the violence with which he shouts and pushes his arse into her face makes her swoon. She has to stroke herself, push several fingers inside of herself, to ride her hand. And it's the taste of him, the taste of the golden egg as he pushes it out of himself and into her mouth that undoes her in turn: her teeth click around the metal, his arse slurps and he falls onto the bed, howling, and she is there, there. She collapses upon him, shaking atop her hand, wringing the last waves of pleasure out of herself, the egg falling out of her mouth onto his back as she whimpers out her last. 

"Come here, my madwoman," he groans as he pulls her into his arms. He makes to hug her tight, but he is shaking too much to hold her, and together they fall into a heap of sweaty, trembling limbs, utterly exhausted, utterly sated from love. 

"We shall do this again," she groans and pulls a blanket over them.

"Spoken like a true libertine," he mumbles and kisses her forehead, halfway to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

She dreams of embracing women: soft, voluptuous women perfumed with honey, rose and ambergris. During the day, she flushes near Halima and Gol whenever she hasn't been able to avoid them, flits restlessly even when she is in Jaffar's company. In the evenings, she corners him and demands to be loved to exhaustion, yet her dreams are filled with restless visions, punishing her for--no, she does not know what. 

She dreams of the girls attacking her at the baths, holding her open, Halima forcing her leather cock inside of her and it feels enormous, like it will split her cunny, her entire body in half. There is but pain, pain and Jaffar standing masked in the doorway, the tails of his turban drawn over his face, his eyes unreadable. He ignores her cries, merely watching the scene calmly, not making a move to rescue her. 

Other times, she dreams of Jaffar himself punishing her, humiliating her: he lies down upon his bed and makes her watch as half a dozen women suck him, kiss him, ride him, offer their cunnies and their arses to his mouth and his cock. She screams and she screams for him to stop, but he doesn't; sometimes, he is merciful and lets her join in, but only as the lowliest of his slaves. He takes her by the hair and forces her to crawl to the other women, makes them all bend over in a row and proceeds to sodomise them all, forcing her to taste their arses off his cock.

She wakes up wet, her mouth full of the taste of honey, salt and must. 

Jaffar spoons her and slides his cock between her thighs, rutting between their slickness, sighing with happiness. "Am I to take it that this is the fragrance of roses blossoming?"

"I hate you," she groans, even as she sinks into his embrace.

"And before you ask me, yes, it's quite obvious," he murmurs. "You were moaning my name, then that of Gol's."

"Oh, God."

"And Bolbol's. And Zahra's. No Halima this time, so it can't have been a nightmare."

She covers her face with her hands and moans. "No more!"

He but kisses her shoulder and slides himself inside of her, gently, sweetly; even he moans in astonishment at the true extent of her wetness. "I put a fire in your hips," he murmurs against her ear, in genuine awe. "It's only fair that I should quench it," he says, and strangely, he does not sound lecherous but rather concerned. "As much as I enjoy watching you squirm, there _is_ such a thing as unreasonable cruelty."

"I am glad you admit that."

"But why have you not made love to Gol yet, my sweet? I have told you at least half a dozen times that I would not be jealous. You needn't wait for my permission, or involvement."

"You would have watched it through your crystal nevertheless," she groans and squeezes around his cock in revenge.

"Ah--" he laughs. "Yes, I am sure I would have." He combs her hair back from her face to kiss her ear, to hug her close to himself. "You truly are the most faithful of wives, to the point where it resembles a madness."

"Do not mock me, my lord." She shudders around him, suddenly cold: his cock now feels painful inside of her and she pulls herself free of him.

Now, he truly is hurt, fully awake. "Yassamin." He kisses her shoulder. "I am sorry. I truly am. But what would you have me do? I have waited, just as you have told me to, have not forced you in any way. Yet it seems to me that you want me to do _something._ That you are waiting for more than just my permission."

And he is right: she feels helpless, confused. She has enjoyed him teaching her the arts of love, has enjoyed being the active lover herself many times, yet there is something within her that holds her back. What would she do with a woman? One would think that like knows like, but she also knows how difficult it is to stir a woman, and she feels even more ridiculous about hesitating now that she knows the games the girls play behind her back. Yet, how could she ever compete with someone like Halima, know how to satisfy another woman? There is no harsher critic of a woman than another woman, and in this art, she is still but a virgin, afraid of her clumsiness, afraid that she would make a fool out of herself.

And there is another reason--her love for Jaffar. She turns around in his arms, takes his hands and kisses them for long moments. Jaffar does not force her out of her silence: he but holds her, kisses her hair, her mouth, embraces her until she relaxes in his arms. The words are difficult to find, but she tries to arrange them into some semblance of reason nevertheless.

"I will not, cannot do it alone." She sounds cowardly as she says it, anything but a queen, and casts her eyes down for her shame. But there is no other way. "You are the one with the courage, the experience I lack. And I would not feel safe alone, I--"

"My poor child!" he laughs, warmly, hugging her close and covering her head in kisses. "Now you are making me feel like a pimp."

"I still fear you do not understand women, Jaffar," she murmurs against his chest. "What if something goes awry? What if I turn Gol, or some other girl into a vicious harpy? I could not bear to live under the same roof with such women."

He shrugs. "You are a queen and they are but slaves; you could sell them on, manumit them, even behead them if you so wished."

"Jaffar!"

"No, no; I apologise. I can tell what you are going to ask me next," he grins. "I have seen that question on the tip of your tongue for days. Come. I am ready to hear it."

She looks into his eyes, resenting him for knowing her so well. Yet it is a relief to finally voice that question. "Are there magics that could ease the way?" 

He kisses her forehead. "Fortunately for you, I have had time to think of two answers. One: I am not going to perform a love spell for you. The effects are too strong, and I would keep those magics between you and I alone. You would hardly want to bind your soul to another woman's when it's merely a taste of the cunny you are after."

She slaps his chest and huffs, but he is right. "And your second answer?"

"Well. Lust spells are an entirely different matter. I can create a... fever of sorts, a trance, not unlike the effects of drunkenness, for a night. And should you want me to follow it with a sleep of forgetfulness, I can do that, if only for your peace of mind."

The ruthlessness of it all makes her tremble--but not merely from horror, no; a sickening sense of power, of perfect power curls in her belly at the thought of it. To be a queen over not just the bodies of her subjects, but their minds and hearts also: whoever heard of such majesty? Was this what the queen of Sheba had felt when she had married Solomon, king of all magicians? She flushes with heat and strokes his cheek, gazing into his eyes boldly. "Sometimes, my witch-king, you frighten me."

He slides off her nightdress and closes his hands around her breasts, adoring her gooseflesh. "And you love being so thrilled."

"Yes," she whispers against his lips. "Yes, I do." She wraps her leg around his waist, guiding his cock inside of herself once more. "I have but one additional request."

He groans and turns her over, lifting her legs onto his shoulders, his witch-eyes pale, wide from arousal. "I am all ears."

She cannot speak at first for being pressed into the bed so, all of her flesh trembling, squeezing around the wonderful hardness, the wonderful friction of his cock. So she takes his mouth instead, kissing him until he is out of breath, until he has to slow down a little, until he is quivering on top of her. 

"Out with it," he gasps against her cheek and rolls his hips.

"I would that you entranced me in turn," she says, rocking her hips back into his thrusts, massaging his cock with her muscles, pulling him deeper inside of herself. "Promise me. With magic, wine or pain; I want you within me one way or another."

"As if I could ever be anything but," he groans, thrusting with more force, now. "I will give you anything you ask, oh; shall fill you with all three should you want them," he hisses against her cheek. 

"Then, fill me," she moans, clawing at his sides until he jerks and mewls from the sweet pain, "fill me, Jaffar."

He grunts, huffs, takes her with such force the bed creaks, takes her until she is afraid no more. 

***

Once the day arrives, he stays true to his promise, telling her they shall start with her favourite intoxicant: pain. Thus, she stands naked in the middle of his bedroom, shivering with delight as he stalks around her, stern, tapping his riding cane against his leg. 

"I would not spare you," he whispers against her ear as he walks past. He makes the cane whistle through the air until she closes her eyes, tiptoes, her cunny tightening so violently she nearly loses her balance. He but laughs. "For it is my cruelty that you need tonight, is it not, my child?" He kisses her ear, then the other. "You need me to break you open so that I might pour you full of pleasure in turn. Is this not true?"

"Yes," she whispers reverently, kissing the cane as he brings it to her lips.

"A hundred strokes for adultery, distributed over several nights, just as we had agreed," he murmurs, kissing her mouth. "However, I shall let you decide the number of strokes for tonight. What's it to be? Ten?" 

"Twenty," she says.

He steps back, unable to disguise his shock; he struggles to replace the tyrant's mask upon his face. He has never given her more than ten, telling her the cane is far more brutal than the whip and that he might truly maim her if he gave her more. So she lets her head hang in shame: there is only the rustle of his silks, the sound of the cane swishing against them as he taps his leg once more, this time with agitation. He makes to speak, and she knows he is about to ask her if she is sure, but he stops himself just in time. He lifts her chin instead and looks into her eyes, his own flashing with care, tenderness before he draws in a deep breath and hardens his gaze once more. "You have made your choice," he says, and it is not a question.

"Yes," she says.

He leans in close, his voice steady, calm, his eyes now but shards of ice. "Then I shall make your nightmares come true, my love."

And the blue of his eyes is the last thing she sees before his cane hits her belly. He has never hit her this hard and never there, no, the shock of it sending her staggering onto the floor. She clutches her stomach and cannot even sob, cannot even breathe for the pain.

He but walks up to her and nudges her chin with the curled tip of his boot. "Get up." 

She does, her hair a mess over her face, but he does not give her time to even panic as the next three strokes hit her buttocks, the fourth sending her onto the floor once more. She thinks of praying for him to stop, but cannot, cannot form words when even thoughts are a broken jumble in her head. All she can do is to curl up on the floor on her side, panting, staring into the distance.

"Pathetic," he snarls and whips her hair aside so that he can see her face, feast upon her pain. She knows he does not mean those words, but in this moment, they are real: in this moment, she is a pathetic wretch, and he--oh, _he is erect,_ she can see it, see the bulge now lifting his silks as he squats beside her.

"But six strokes and you have crumpled," he sneers, wiping his nose with his thumb. "You didn't think of this when you made eyes at your Byzantine _tiger,_ did you?" He whips her thighs, her belly so that she spasms, then gets up and pushes her onto her back with his foot. "You didn't cover yourself from him like this, so why are you now covering yourself from me? Hmm?"

"Please, Jaffar, please, stop--" she lifts her knees to her belly, clasps her breasts with her hands. Yet she does not utter the word _"Mercy,"_ the one they have agreed upon to stop the play. She wants none, even if her lips may speak the opposite. Thus, she covers herself once more, wanting to be uncovered, begs for him to stop so that she can be sure he won't. "Please spare me." 

"None of that nonsense," he says and whips her hard across the buttocks, so that the tip of the cane snaps off her cunny, and now her vision goes white with pain. She lies there, for how many seconds--minutes?--she does not know as he keeps stalking around her, his breathing now heavy from arousal. Perhaps this is not a game, she thinks; perhaps a part of him had truly been jealous, perhaps a part of him had truly wanted to hurt her. Yet is this not what she wanted? Somewhere, deep inside of her, had there been a harlot that had wanted to make him jealous? To test his love, perhaps--had she secretly been one of those women, those weak and cruel creatures who doubted their husbands' love? And does he know it, does he think so, too? Perhaps he carries within himself the jealous husband, too, and just as her demons had craved this punishment, had his demons yearned to punish her, too, to give her pain for what she had done, punish her for ever questioning his love?

And as he strikes her across her legs, across her arms, sending her rolling upon the floor in a sea of pain, she knows herself to be right, knows it. And yet this is the opposite of true violence: it is a love-play, a mutual agreement to act out their frustrations through the kiss of the cane, through hateful words neither would otherwise ever speak to the other. Whereas other women torment their husbands, whereas other men beat their wives, she and Jaffar have this, a ritual, a ceremony with which they submit even those urges to the service of love. And does this not raise them above ordinary people, make them the true alchemists, having found the way to turn poison into gold, growing the seeds of what could become hatred into a fierce, blazing inflorescence of love? 

"Please, my love, please," she begs, whimpers, having lost count of his strokes, but she does not care. She offers him those words exactly because she knows they are honey to his ears, a rush of blood to his sex. She burns from his cruelty and wants more of it, wants to be consumed by it, turned to ashes by it.

And it is now that he forces her to lie down on her back and puts his foot on her chest. It is a blessing, oh, it is a blessing as he puts his weight upon her sternum, the pressure of it steadying her heartbeat, suffocating the sob of joy that breaks from her chest. He cups himself roughly through his shalwars and hisses, snarls. For a moment, she thinks he will masturbate on her, perhaps even urinate upon her the way she has heard prison guards do, so that the prisoners will have to say their prayers in an impure state, so that God will not heed their prayers. To be so cut off from God's mercy, the greatest punishment of all, to be cast into complete darkness--

But he lets go of his cock and takes his foot off her chest. "Get up," he spits. "On all fours. Spread yourself."

She whimpers in protest, but he nudges her with his foot once more. "What's the matter? You spread it so easily for Halima when you thought I was not looking. Or is that what you prefer, hmm? Offering your little cunt to a woman instead of your own husband?"

She shakes her head, feverish from pain, her voice but a broken whisper. "No. It is you that I love, husband, believe me, only you, only ever you."

"Should I believe you?" he leers and swishes his cane--and as she turns to look at him, she can see warmth glittering in his eyes once more, the very sight of his smile making her heart leap. 

"Yes, my lord and master," she says as she arranges herself so that she is offering her arse, her cheek resting upon the floor. 

"Then prove it," he says, lifting her hair from her face, this time with his hand, his smile ever warmer as he caresses her cheek. "There is one more stroke left. I am going to mark you so that whoever touches you will know who it is that you truly belong to. Show me. Show me where you want my mark."

She swallows, wishes that he would kiss her now to make this easier, but he doesn't. He waits and he waits, squatting beside her as she spreads her buttocks, spreads them wide, exposing her anus. She can feel her cunny dripping down to her thighs as she does so, oh; she is perverted, as perverted as he is--and he knows it, his nostrils flaring at her sweet scent. 

He brings his hand to her cunny, stroking her slit softly so that she jerks, the intensity of the pleasure a sharp shock after all the pain. "Is this where you want me to mark you?" he murmurs.

"No," she gasps, squeezing her eyes shut. "Higher."

He croons and plays with her slit, and as she opens her eyes, she can see there is a wet spot upon his groin, too, his cock jerking within his silks as he paints the welts upon her buttocks with her wetness. "Here, my sweet? Or here?"

She shivers, biting her lip. "No, my master." She shakes her head. "Up... there."

He scoops up more wetness from her cunny, then presses his fingertips to her arse, pressing, swirling them there. "Here?" he asks, his voice all sweetness. 

_I am going to come,_ she thinks, panicking, wondering if that is what he is after, wondering if she is allowed to, but no, no, it can't be just yet: she jerks back from his touch, her cunny pulsing and pulsing so that she has to cry out onto the floor tiles. "There, my lord," she whimpers. "Please mark me there."

"It _is_ a wanton little hole," he purrs and dips a finger inside of her, twisting it so deep it sinks in to the knuckle, making her scream. But as swiftly as he has dipped it inside of her, he removes it and he's upon his feet again, licking her taste from his fingertip. "And so delicious, too," he says and smacks his lips. "Tell me again, who does it belong to?"

"You, my lord and master," she says, her cunny now pulsing uncontrollably, her arms aching from holding her buttocks apart.

He twirls the cane in his fingers. "And who decides who gets to touch it, taste it? _Fuck_ it?"

"Only you, husband," she cries out, far too loudly, "only you."

And before she has even finished saying it, he strikes her right on her anus, the pain sending her howling, collapsing upon the floor, spasming. 

"That's all I wanted to hear, my child," he says, the cane hitting the floor as he kneels behind her, spreading her buttocks himself, admiring the mark he has left. "There is no blood," he chuckles. "I made sure to make that stroke the lightest."

"It did not feel that way," she groans, still in a red and white haze of pain, light-headed. 

He answers her with a kiss, a soft, lewd, wet kiss upon her arse, his tongue sinuous and hot as it traces the welt. He moans into her arse, so wonderful she has to rub her cunny against his chin, desperate for friction, so close to orgasm, now. "Please, please let me come," she begs, even if she knows it is of no use.

"Have you any idea how much _I_ want to come, right now?" he hisses, pulling back for breath, squeezing his cock through his silks. "But the girls are waiting for us. And I am not sure if I can cast that spell if I am sated," he groans, his forehead against her hip. "God, Yassamin; I love you so much, I hope that you know it--"

"You have just proved it to me in abundance," she says and turns around, kissing him violently, taking his mouth with her tongue. Right now, she cares so little for the girls she would rather have him take her right here, right now--waiting a minute longer seems a torture worse than being caned. And it is obvious Jaffar feels the same way. He is now rutting against her thigh, moaning, seeming so close to orgasm himself that she knows she has to take charge, now. 

She pulls herself free and staggers to her feet. "Show me."

***

He wraps a silk robe around her and leads her to one of the entertaining rooms. Before they enter through the doorway, Jaffar parts its curtain a little and hushes her, offering her a peek. And the sight that greets her is as if Jaffar had looked into her dreams--and he must have; it's so outrageous in its debauchery. For now, she looks upon half a dozen women lounging upon cushions, beds, wearing very little or nothing at all, all warm, amorous, nuzzling and kissing each other. 

"This is ridiculous!" she blurts. "It's an orgy!"

"Do you like it? It is akin to the visions Theo told me the Christians have of our ways," he chuckles. "He was bitterly disappointed when I told him a harem is not a brothel and that we never take all our women at the same time. Really, the man is a bigger lech than I."

"Perhaps he put the idea into my head," she murmurs as she watches Halima lean back upon the largest of the beds, naked but for her artificial cock, a girl on each arm. "Are we to but watch?"

"At first," he says breezily, then enters. "Carry on," he says to the girls as he leads Yassamin to the bed opposite Halima's. The girls do as they are told and he leans back against some cushions, taking Yassamin into his lap so that her back is against his chest, his legs on either side of hers. "I have never seen them so obedient," he murmurs as he undoes her robe, cupping her breasts. "You know, I think I should enspell them more often."

She leans back into his arms and kisses his cheek. "What have you told them to do?"

"Well," he says, flicking his thumbs over her nipples. "I said this was to be Halima's farewell feast. So I told them they could be as lascivious as they wanted to be, as long as we could watch. They did not need much persuading; the spell I laid upon them is no stronger than that brought on by a few cupfuls of wine," he chuckles. "Although I have made it so that unlike wine, the magic will make it easier for the subjects to reach release."

"How thoughtful of you," she quips. 

"Yes, isn't it?" He slides his hand between her legs and cups her cunny, his hand so huge, so warm upon it, so wonderful she has to laugh, kiss him. 

"Jaffar, Jaffar. This is all mere charity, I am sure--it would have nothing to do with the idea of watching a room full of women writhe in orgasm, brought on by your powers?"

"Nothing whatsoever," he laughs and returns her kiss. "But come, we are here to watch. Look."

She was turning her head in the direction of the noise already. One of the younger maids--Bolbol, she thinks; she always gets her confused with the other lithe, dark-haired Circassian--now straddles Halima, lowering herself upon Halima's cock. And the noise she makes as she lowers her slight hips upon it, the cruel leer upon Halima's face as she urges the girl to take it deeper, oh, Yassamin can barely watch. She looks beside them, and the other Circassian is masturbating beside them. The girls must be sisters, they must be--the one now riding her hands was called Nilofar, was it? Or has she got it the wrong way around? They have always been Halima's maids and not hers, so she is not sure. Oh, she is thinking too much, still restless even if the cane had helped remove most of her tension. Thus, she clasps Jaffar's hand and urges him to stroke her more, to help her relax. "Please."

"Does the sight not please you enough?" 

"It's not that; I--" she swallows as Bolbol yowls and shudders upon Halima, falling upon her so that now Yassamin can see her cunny, see its full lips wrapped around Halima's cock. "It is a pleasing sight, it is, but--"

"But you would rather take part in it yourself?"

"No. Not with them, I mean. Where are the others?"

"I was hoping you would ask." He clears his throat. "Halima."

Halima pushes Bolbol off herself with a kiss and a chuckle, then struts over to where Jaffar and Yassamin are resting, her cock gleaming, dripping as it sways between her legs. She kneels beside Jaffar, stroking her cock, grinning mischievously. "Would you like me to take the mistress now?"

Yassamin swallows. Jaffar hesitates deliberately, smirking as he glances at Halima's cock, then at Yassamin. "Perhaps a little later." As if on a whim, he closes his hand around Halima's cock, stroking it as if it were real. And to Yassamin's astonishment, Halima shivers, her nipples crinkling; Jaffar but tuts at her. "Only I promised my queen grown women, not maidens. Where is Gol?"

Halima makes a face and tugs her cock free, turning towards the back of the room. "Gol! Zahra!"

The two women emerge from behind a curtain, tittering like young girls, flushed all over. "Have you been playing with each other again, you wretched little wenches?" Halima asks. She strides over to them and slaps both of them on the buttocks, sending them into a giggling pile beside Jaffar and Yassamin. "Now, Zahra, you go and take my place." She unbuckles the belt of her cock and winces a little as she removes it, revealing a smaller penis that had been inside of her body, just as Jaffar had said, now sticky and gleaming from Halima's own arousal. "Take this. And Gol--you stay here."

But Gol is not listening: her head lolls over Jaffar's legs, so that she now has an unimpeded view of Yassamin's cunny. Jaffar notices this and spreads Yassamin with his fingers, and as Yassamin gasps, that's when Halima notices and smacks Gol again. "I am not going to miss disciplining you, you hopeless trollop," she says.

"Liar," Gol drawls with a drunken leer, stretching luxuriously upon the cushions, completely at ease in her nakedness. Her inner thighs are wet, her face is flushed; it's clear Zahra must have given her release already. Yassamin can smell her, and she has to close her thighs around Jaffar's hand, to rub herself against it and bite her lip. Oh, but Gol smells wonderful, as sweet as she herself does, and she can tell Jaffar is aroused by her, too, his breath catching a little as Gol turns around. Gol pretends to do this to face them, but mostly so that she can now flash her cunny at them, gleaming, full, pink, as if taunting them to taste it. It is the movement of a trained courtesan and Yassamin moans, helpless, wondering if Jaffar had bought her from a school for entertaining-girls.

"My most noble mistress _likes_ you," Jaffar purrs at Gol. "And would like to watch you at play. At first," he says playfully.

"It pleases my ears to hear that, master," Gol says boldly, taking Yassamin's hand and kissing it, smiling at her, making Yassamin's heart flutter. "What would be my mistress's pleasure?" she asks her and not Jaffar.

Pleased with this, Jaffar rubs Yassamin's clitoris, making her answer come out a moan. "I would watch you and Halima," Yassamin stutters.

Jaffar tuts. "You should not have given away your manhood, Halima."

Halima embraces Gol from behind, lifting her breasts, displaying them for him and Yassamin. "Oh, there are other ways for a woman to take another, ones even you could not have dreamt of, Jaffar."

"Is that so?" Jaffar says, a little annoyed at her boldness, at her familiarity. "You may be a free woman, now, but I can still have you sent to the block if you displease me," he says, and from the way Halima but shrugs, it's clear to Yassamin that this is an old, empty threat he has thrown her way before. "Show me," Jaffar snarls.

Grinning, Halima makes a point of ignoring Jaffar completely and turns her full attention on Gol. Gol but smiles, eyeing Yassamin, the heat of her gaze making Yassamin's cunny tighten underneath Jaffar's hand. Her favourite handmaiden, and she has never known her like this, never knew she could be so lascivious, everything she had ever dreamt of, and she does not know if she can bear it. Again, Yassamin brings her hand over Jaffar's, needing more friction, anything to help the now-painful heat rolling in her hips. "Please," she whispers as much to the women as she does to Jaffar.

Halima guides Gol to kneel between Yassamin's and Jaffar's legs, presenting her backside to them. And oh, oh, it is the worst thing that she could have done: Gol goes on all fours and now Yassamin whimpers as she has a clear view of her cunny, the scent of it so close that it drives her mad from hunger. Halima but grins, kneels beside Gol's hips and leans over her, grabbing handfuls of her flesh and moving it to and fro so that the lips of Gol's cunny part for them, so that the folds of her anus stretch like a little flowerbud opening for them. Yassamin's mouth waters and she jerks underneath Jaffar's hand, so close to orgasm but from this sight and she never knew this could be possible, never knew it.

Jaffar murmurs appreciatively, yet she is not sure whom to; her or the women. "That's good, very good. See how much she appreciates it?" He grins wickedly and draws strings, beads of wetness from Yassamin's cunny, displaying her arousal to the women, despite her noises of shame. He lifts those drops to Yassamin's mouth and as they meet her lips, she can no longer deny herself: she is as wet as if she had been taken all night, her arousal thick, sweet, rich upon her tongue. She moans around Jaffar's fingers, closes her eyes and Halima but laughs, that laughter making her cunny clench over and over.

"It _is_ a pretty little cunny," Halima purrs. 

Gol turns to look at it, too, crooning her agreement. "Very pretty indeed."

"May I?" Halima asks, her hand hovering over Yassamin's cunny.

Jaffar laughs and spreads her with his fingers, lifting the hood of her clitoris. "You may."

And then both Gol and Halima are upon her: Yassamin cries out as they spread her legs and settle between them. Reflexively, she tries to close her legs, but Jaffar and Gol hold her open as Halima leans in and _inhales_ her. 

"Oh my Go--" but Yassamin's words are cut short as Halima extends her tongue and licks her, licks her entire slit, twice, thrice. "Please--!"

"Oh, but she likes that," Gol purrs. "May I have a taste?"

"Most certainly," Jaffar says, spreading her even wider. 

And then Yassamin is lost: Gol grins between her legs, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief, her full mouth descending upon her cunny. She does not lick Yassamin's slit, no, but heads straight for her clitoris, not unlike Jaffar himself; she sucks it into her mouth and keeps looking up at her, and as she slides two fingers into the wetness of her cunny, Yassamin's eyes roll back in her head. Gol, Gol, sweet, beautiful Gol taking her in a manner she thought only Halima would have been capable of, curling her fingers, fucking her, sucking her until she screams in Jaffar's embrace, undone, undone. 

Hours, days, weeks of frustration now spiral out of her, flooding Gol's hand, Jaffar's laughter a rumble echoing against her back, vibrating through her entire body, making her buck upon Gol's fingers again, thrashing helplessly. And all throughout, Gol stares at her just as Jaffar does when he satisfies her in this manner, never ceasing in her thrusts, sucks: in astonishment, Yassamin realises Gol goes on even longer than Jaffar does, knowing how long a woman's release can last, luring out every little tremor, every little curl of tension still hiding within her flesh. Gol turns her fingers inside of Yassamin, presses them towards her spine and Yassamin thinks she is coming again, or maybe this is still the first orgasm, she does not know any longer: she wails, howls in Jaffar's arms, rubbing her cunny against Gol's mouth, marking that beautiful face, possessing it with her flesh. 

"God--" she cries through chattering teeth when Gol finally withdraws for breath. But now, despite Yassamin's cries of protest, Halima leans in to lap up what Gol has milked out of her, every drop of her sweetness her reward. Halima must know she is hurting her when she is this sensitive from orgasm, and in her eyes, Yassamin can spy the same cruel delight that lights up Jaffar's whenever he so tortures her--oh, they are two of a kind. Never taking her eyes from her, Halima feels for her insides with the precision of a midwife, pulls out more thick, clear strings of her fluids, tickling the root of her womb as she does until Yassamin squirms and tosses upon her hand. 

"Please, stop," Yassamin cries, and perhaps it is the tone of her voice that now makes Jaffar take charge. He takes Halima's hand and pulls it out of Yassamin's body, squeezing her wrist so tight even Halima's freckles lose their colour and blend into the whiteness of her flesh. 

"You heard the lady. Come, play with Gol for us; then you may have some more."

Halima yanks her hand free and licks the strings off her fingertips, slowly, triumphantly. "To hear is to obey," she says, and does not mean it at all; she is obeying her own pleasure and not Jaffar's.

Yassamin, however, turns around in Jaffar's arms, burying her face in his shoulder. She sobs, shaken, still trying to understand. It had all happened so fast, her first time with a woman, _women,_ not at all like she had imagined: there were no soft touches, sweet seductions, the pressing of breasts upon breasts. Yet she still shudders in aftershocks, her hips full of blood, heat, the memory of Gol's fingers and Halima's tongue still caressing her cunny. She does not know whether to curse them all or to thank them.

And somehow, Jaffar seems to understand; she could weep from joy at how tenderly he now holds her. For a moment, she does not hear Halima or Gol at all--he must have gestured for them to remain silent. He embraces her firmly, pets her hair, kisses her and kisses her: he wraps his legs around her and makes love to her, softly, sweetly. He undoes his clothes and guides her hands underneath them, as if to remind her of the feel of a man's body, of the heart that beats inside his chest, full of love for her. And hungrily, she takes him with her hands, her kisses. She kisses every part of his body she now uncovers, wishing she could sink inside of Jaffar and ravish all these women from within the safety of his body, so that she would not have to feel so vulnerable around them. 

He pulls her to lie on top of himself and takes her face in his hands. "My poor child," he says, "still so frightened." He kisses her, frowning a little as he pulls back. "Do you want the magic? Or a cup of wine?"

"Yes."

He smacks her arse and laughs. "Which one do you mean?" 

"The magic," she grins and kisses him once more. 

And he replaces both his hands upon her temples: for a moment, she feels dizzy, as if those two hands' touches now connected inside her head, flashing like a bright flame behind her eyelids. She falls slack: somewhere in the distance, the Circassians moan in orgasm; somewhere, hands meet flesh and giggles escape from between clenched teeth. Gol and Halima's bodies brush up against theirs as they make love beside them, but for a long time, Yassamin does not stir. Like a moth drowned in honey, she but lies in pleasure, thick and heavy pleasure, enjoyment, all darkness and pain and fear having left her.

"Merciful God," she finally slurs against Jaffar's neck.

He but chuckles and nuzzles her cheek. "I am told it _does_ feel like two or three cupfuls of wine at once. You are feeling better now, I hope?"

"Yes," she sighs happily. "Thank you."

"My pleasure. Speaking of which," he says, glancing pointedly at his groin.

"Ahem, son of Cough is feeling a little neglected, is he?" she laughs, rocking her hips upon him.

"You could say that," he says, smiling at her so hard his eyes lose focus. "Come. Turn around and face my feet, ride me as you watch them, so that we can both see."

The welts upon her body sting as she moves, but even those feel pleasant, now: slowly, she rocks herself upon his cock, so glad to finally have it inside of her, filling her. He clasps her hand, she clasps his as she sinks upon him, enjoying every sweet inch of his cock, the muscles of it, so aware of him she swears she can feel the pulse in his veins inside of her body. She does not question this, no; he has worked greater magics. And as she feels him spurt a little inside of her, she cries out, laughs in recognition, turns around to give him a scolding look. "You are wearing it, you dirty old goat."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," he purrs. "But it never feels as good without a certain lady's weight upon me to complete the pleasure," he says and kisses her hand.

"Oh, then I shall _milk_ you," she whispers, squeezing him with her muscles until he cries out, until he throws back his head and trembles upon the cushions.

Halima lifts her head from Gol's lap at the noise, curious. "Well done. He does deserve a little torture," she says and winks at Yassamin.

"Mind your own business," Jaffar growls, out of breath.

"As a matter of fact, I am," she says. "Are you going to watch us or not?"

Again, Jaffar growls, now turning Yassamin onto her side so that they are spooning, so that he can take her more slowly. Yassamin is sure he is not doing it out of mere tenderness, no; he has waited so long for his release that but a few more rolls of her hips would have undone him. This way, he is in charge of the thrusts, and she relaxes in his arms, luxuriating in having her body and her eyes served so.

"Do educate us," she says to the women, in a voice most honeyed, stretching happily in Jaffar's arms, rocking upon the sweetness of his cock. 

But they are doing so already, Halima now massaging Gol's hips, her cunny, her arse with a thick white cream that turns clear, liquid with the warmth of her body. It smells of roses, intoxicating in its richness, the sugar of Gol's cunny turning the scent richer still. Gol has closed her eyes, her fingers clutching at the brocade as Halima rubs her clitoris with one thumb, dips inside her anus with another. Between her legs, Gol is as white and as pink as Theo was, the paleness of her skin making the flushed parts even more striking, as if an invitation to mate with her, to taste her. Even when Halima had been taking her with her cock, Gol had never appeared this aroused: the lips of her cunny are now entirely a dark pink, swollen thick; she barely makes a noise as Halima slips three fingers inside of her cunny with ease, her other hand's thumb completely buried in her arse. 

No, it is her cunny that is louder, disgustingly loud as Halima turns her hand to and fro, tucking a fourth finger in, fucking Gol with sure, deep strokes: Gol sloshes for them, covering her face with her arm and moaning in shame as Halima opens her so. But it is Jaffar that now cries out the loudest, thrusting inside of Yassamin, shuddering against her. The entire room smells of cunny now, the only noises in it the sighs and cries of pleasure, of wet flesh on flesh, and underneath it all, the quietest tinkle of the bell inside Jaffar's body, a noise only Yassamin can hear. If this is a dream, she never wants to wake up from it, never, ever.

But it is then that Halima pulls her hand out and leaves Gol's cunny gaping: it is a brutal sight, awful, but as Halima replaces her hand, Gol howls as if slain, her body now allowing Halima's hand in all the way to her palm. Halima turns her hand, changes the angle of her thrusts, leans over Gol's cunny and stares at her, only focused upon her. "You are going to come for me," she says, not a question but an order. "Are you ready?"

Gol's answer is unintelligible: she makes to form words, but then Halima tucks her thumb in and twists her hand, then buries her mouth in Gol's cunny. Yassamin cranes her head, but what she can't see is more maddening: she imagines all of Halima's hand must be inside of Gol's body, now, so much larger than a cock, the wet, fast noises of it, oh, God--

Yet it is Jaffar who comes first, howling into Yassamin's shoulder, crushing her against his chest. He floods her cunny with sperm, thick, heavy sperm, his hips jerking in time with Halima's thrusts. Gol follows him, their cries mixing with each other's, as if trying to beat each other in ecstasies: Gol screams into the canopies, tossing and jerking upon the bed, and from the way Halima now chokes, swallows, Yassamin knows Gol must be wetting her face.

And yet Jaffar does not stop fucking Yassamin, hissing as he forces himself to still completely, remaining hot and thick and heavy inside of her. "Keep going," he snarls to Halima, "keep going."

Halima shoots him a glance over her shoulder. "I was going to." She then drags Gol even closer, so that Gol's buttocks are but inches from Yassamin's face. Gol herself is as limp as a doll, groaning and bleary-eyed, her head falling upon the cushions once more as Halima rearranges her.

"Do you want to taste her?" Halima asks.

Yassamin nods. "Please."

"Well, then," Halima says, almost tender, and pulls Gol's legs open so that she lies before them, exposed, offered. 

To Yassamin's surprise, Jaffar pulls out for a while, gesturing for her to go between Gol's legs. "Do not think I am finished with you, my lady;" he says, smacking her arse as she moves onto all fours. "But for now, I, too, would watch."

Yassamin can barely hear him, hear Halima, them exchanging some barb or another; all she can now see is Gol. And this, this is what she has been dreaming of: instead of sinking her mouth onto Gol's cunny, she insists on lying on top of her, kissing her, pressing her breasts against Gol's the way she has always wanted to. Oh, she is so soft, so soft, her skin underneath hers tender, Gol's thighs around her waist making her melt into her embrace. So she laces her fingers with Gol's and makes love to her in this fashion, but rubbing against her, her belly and her hips pleasuring Gol's cunny, her mouth pleasuring her mouth, her hands pleasuring her breasts. Gol is relaxed, pliant from her orgasm and responds gently, with such happiness it makes Yassamin smile in turn, makes her drink from the sweetness of Gol's mouth again and again and again. 

Amidst their embraces, Halima and Jaffar steal kisses from them, snatch licks upon their cunnies, mouths: yet Yassamin is possessed by greed, wanting to give Gol the greatest of pleasures herself. So she kisses her way down the soft hills of her belly, all the way down to her cunny. She thinks to inhale it, but finds her mouth has taken it already, that her tongue is dipping inside of her to taste her, to savour her. She has waited so long and now only wants to swallow Gol into herself, savour her like a sweetmeat, sucking upon her cunny's lips, folds, her clitoris, all as pink as marzipan. And as sweet, too, with but the rose cream and the salt of her flesh mixed in, and she sucks every drop of it off her flesh, now knowing why Jaffar loves this act so. It is intoxicating, the way a woman's flesh flutters under the tongue, how Gol keeps dripping and dripping--oh, she never wants to stop, but her jaw is aching. 

"You taste wonderful," she groans; perhaps an obvious thing to say, but it is the truth. "So sweet, so wonderful," she murmurs, nuzzling Gol's mound.

Gol looks drunk, too, so happy; she caresses Yassamin's hair and smiles. "Please, mistress. Please grant me your mouth for a while longer."

"I would give you release," Yassamin says, kissing the top of her slit. "But I do not know how."

"Here's a little something that would help," Halima grins and tosses the jar of cream next to her, making Gol bite her lip and cast her eyes down in embarrassment. "Tell her," Halima says, leaning down next to them, caressing Gol's shoulder. "Or shall I?"

Gol swallows, but rushes to answer nevertheless. "I would have you take me like he takes you," she says.

Yassamin shakes her head and kisses Gol's thigh. "I would need the leather prick."

"Or a skilled hand," Halima says, sliding hers between Gol's buttocks, stroking there. Shall I show you the way, mistress?"

And at that, Yassamin's cunny tightens, tightens once more: as much as she enjoys tasting, touching Gol, the idea of watching stirs her even more. "Please." 

And then Jaffar lifts Yassamin's hips and slides his cock inside of her in but one thrust, making her shriek. "Please," she cries at the women, overwhelmed by pleasure. "And I shall deal with _you_ later," she laughs at Jaffar over her shoulder.

"Punish me, will you?" Jaffar chuckles and leans down to steal a kiss. "What will you do? Have a starving man whipped for stealing a peach?" he croons, rolling his hips until she howls. "Careful, or you'll undo me again."

Out of spite, she refuses to answer him and turns to look at the women instead. Gol is now positioned the same way she is, with her face down and her rump in the air: it is a gorgeous sight, Halima stroking Gol's clitoris with one hand, three cream-slicked fingers moving in and out of her arse with ease. "You have to tug the muscles open a little, but I am sure he has taught you that," Halima says, talking to them as if Gol wasn't there, and Yassamin is sure that is exactly what makes Gol now moan so, even more than the little black gape Halima's fingers now make as they lift her up by it, lift her hips so that her knees almost come off the bed. 

"But, my dear," Halima laughs as Gol's arse opens wider, wider at her touch. "I see Zahra has opened you already."

"Yes, mistress," Gol laughs, giving Halima a filthy look over her shoulder. "And she gave me four. I can barely feel you," she purrs.

Halima smacks her arse again. "Insolent girl. There. _That_ is four. But I am sure you can take more than that, can't you?" she leers.

Gol's only answer is a howl. Yassamin but watches, fascinated, now so aroused by this sight in front of her that she can barely feel Jaffar's cock inside her cunny, that's how slick she is on the inside, so swollen it trips over into numbness. 

Jaffar grunts, groans, tinkles, clutching at her breasts as he tries to get a good look himself. "That's beautiful, oh, beautiful," he moans over her shoulder, his mouth wet from saliva, his hips jerking against her. 

"Jaffar, I would see you sodomise her," Yassamin says--did she truly say that? But Jaffar wails against her neck, so she must have, she must have. And she wants to see it, wants to, wants to see Jaffar's cock sinking inside Gol's arse the way Halima's fingers now sink inside of it, wants to see him fuck a woman the way he fucks her, merciful God. 

He presses his forehead against the back of her head and groans. "Halima first. Come. Show us how you undo her."

"You heard your master," Halima says, scooping up more cream from the jar, twisting four fingers and a thumb inside of Gol, spreading the cream inside of her, opening her easily. "Come for him, come for your mistress, and maybe we will _all_ take this little arse. You would like that, wouldn't you, little pet? Two hands, hers and mine?"

And it is at that that Gol begins to scream, and Halima nods to Yassamin, gesturing towards Gol's cunny. In but seconds, Yassamin realises exactly what she means, pulls off Jaffar despite his groaning and lies down underneath Gol. Gol's thighs quake as Halima forces her to sit on Yassamin's face, forces her cunny onto Yassamin's mouth, and Yassamin can't breathe; it's perfect, perfect. Gol's clitoris is now so swollen it's as thick as Yassamin's fingers, and eagerly, she sucks it into her mouth, sucking it like it was a miniature cock. Gol howls, slipping upon her, her flesh expanding, then tightening: Yassamin pulls back for but a moment to see that now, _Halima's entire hand is inside of Gol's arse._

Yassamin thinks she will be sick, nausea clutching at her stomach, but then Halima twists her wrist and Gol sprays her face, and she cannot help but drink. It is sickening, wonderful, unbelievable: she can hear Jaffar shouting in astonishment, hear the slick sound of his hand on his cock, frantic. And on and on, Halima keeps fucking Gol's arse with her hand, dipping in and out of it as if it was nothing, Gol spasming between them, flooding Yassamin's chin, trickling down the sides of her throat. And Yassamin drinks, sucks upon her clitoris--it even pulses in her mouth like a cock, Yassamin observes with the astounded delight of the scientist.

After a while, Gol collapses onto her side, her arse wide open, gaping: Halima wipes her hand upon the bedcovers and it feels like a waste, such a waste. As if drawn by magic--and perhaps she is drawn by Jaffar's--Yassamin now spreads Gol's buttocks and looks at her, the way the bud of her arse has unfolded for them, gleaming. Gol but looks at her, looks at Yassamin's mouth now so open, looks at her in bleary-eyed astonishment. 

"I would taste you," Yassamin whispers, yet still hesitates, hesitates, the moment between her and Gol stretching thick, heavy, long, Gol's arse clenching between her hands.

Quietly, Jaffar moves over to them and looks from Gol to Yassamin, his hands joining hers upon Gol's buttocks, spreading her. He looks into Yassamin's eyes and smiles. _You want more than just my permission,_ he had said, and he had been right, so right. It is Jaffar she needs, it is his command she needs, needs his help to act out the most illicit of her desires.

Thus, Jaffar now dips his tongue into Gol's arse and swirls it, swirls it: Gol lets out a little broken cry, shakes under his kiss. He does not tarry but lifts his mouth from her, curling out his tongue, cupping Yassamin's head. And upon his tongue, the foam, the cream, the wetness of Gol's arse: with a hopeless sob, Yassamin sucks his tongue into her mouth and tastes Gol, tastes all of her from her beloved husband, master, king. 

She is still shaking when they descend upon Gol, naturally, inevitably: Jaffar spooning Gol, his cock thick and slow within her arse, Yassamin lying by their side and lapping at her cunny, tasting her from Jaffar's shaft as he moves in and out, in and out, sometimes gracing her with a dip into her mouth. And natural, too, is the way Halima now feasts upon Yassamin's cunny in turn: her licks are soft, butterfly-soft as she reaches inside of Yassamin's body with her slickened hands. She twists one into her arse, one into her cunny, alternating the pressure, one moving in as another slides out. And Yassamin had thought her cunny had lost all sensation, but as Halima's hand enters it to its widest part, her knuckles rubbing her on the inside, her fingertips finding _that_ spot behind her pubic bone she howls, sobs, tries to move away because the pleasure is so unbearable. 

Yet Jaffar sees this, laughs and captures Yassamin's head between his thighs. "Take her," he growls to Halima. "Force her to come."

"With pleasure," Halima says, her voice husky from cruelty as she curls her fingers towards the front of Yassamin's body, milks her, milks her until Yassamin can speak no more. Even as her eyes lose focus, even as her body spasms, she fights the orgasm, fights Halima out of spite: perhaps this is a perversion of her own, that she and Halima should never share tenderness, that she would only yield if Halima were to ravish her? She moans into Jaffar's thigh, stiffening entirely as Halima twists her hand into her arse: neither hand can penetrate her fully, but each is thicker than a man's cock, and how Gol had been able to take one inside of herself entire, she has no idea. She has never been this full, electric sparks of nausea rolling through her from her cunny, from her guts, each twinned with a wave of pleasure, pleasure so unimaginable she does not know if she has reached orgasm yet, or if it is but one continuing into eternity, tossing her with its spasms forever, forever.

And it is then that Jaffar glances down at her and offers her his arse, his clenching, red arse with the gold chain swaying with his thrusts. _Submit, submit,_ his gaze is saying, even as he clutches at Gol's breasts, sodomising her brutally, making her scream. _They are all my agents, all my hands, my cunnies, my breasts, my cocks,_ he had told her; _yield to them as you would yield unto me._ And as he pushes out and offers her the gleam of his gold egg, the grotesque stretch of his arse, now like a little cunny in and of itself, she has no choice but to surrender. She cries out, wraps her arms around his hips and buries her face in his arse, licking him, licking him; air is no longer important, light is no longer important and she falls into darkness, the darkness of bodies, the darkness of Jaffar as he swallows her whole. She yields, yields and falls into release, her flesh parting to allow Halima's hand inside of her arse to its widest part, and the last thing she can hear is Halima's triumphant laughter. The last thing she can feel is Halima's mouth upon her clitoris, Halima's fingers fluttering against the back of her womb and she is gone, gone, no more.

When she wakes up, it is upon a different bed, all the girls around her in a circle, fanning her, mopping her body with cool rosewater. Are there six of them? Eight of them? She tries to keep her eyes open but cannot, and falls back onto the cushions instead. Her arse hurts, the pain inside of her now so deep that even awareness of it makes more shivers of nausea lash through her stomach. Yet she feels so relaxed, so sated, so utterly taken that she does not protest as the girls begin to massage her, kiss her, taste her. Quietly, inwardly she laughs, sure that Jaffar is watching her, even if she is too tired to look. And it is strange that it should be the girls' touches upon her body that draw her further within herself, into her own darkness, where only sensation exists. Only the sweet and bitter scents of cunnies, of sweat, of perfumes; only soft hands spreading her open, soft tongues lapping at her, curious fingers feeling for her cunny, the soreness of her arse. 

She is well beyond orgasm, now, only floating in joy, in utter relaxation, bliss, and it is then that she feels Jaffar: not outside of her, even if she knows he is still in the room, but sitting inside of her, cross-legged, sitting in the innermost chamber of her heart. Her husband, her witch-king, her most beloved: he but grins and beckons to her, then pulls her into a kiss, into sweet nothingness once more.


	4. Chapter 4

The next time she awakens, it is to Jaffar's lips upon hers: he is kneeling behind her, kissing her from above with a blissful smile upon his face. "Good evening, my sweet."

She no longer feels groggy, refreshed, rather: she looks around herself and the girls lie all around them fast asleep, some of them mid-caress, their fingers still inside each other, their mouths still pressed to soft breasts, cunnies, buttocks.

"Are they all right?"

He pulls her into his lap and chuckles, the egg still tinkling inside of him. "They shall think of this night as the most satisfying dream they ever had," he says. 

"Where is Halima?"

"Gone to fetch their clothes. She will dress the girls, then help the eunuchs move them to their own beds."

"And Gol?" Even saying her name delivers a painful jolt to her heart.

"Gone with Halima." He leers into her cheek. "She was rather unsteady upon her feet. I like to think it was I who did that."

She kisses his hand. "Did you enjoy taking another woman, after all this time?"

"It would be a lie to say I didn't. You saw me," he murmurs, with a strange note of sadness to his voice. "Do you regret what we did?"

She shakes her head. "I asked you to take her." But now, all of it comes crashing down on her, all that might follow from them having done something that has been forbidden exactly because of the complications involved. Tears fill her eyes, a sudden panic flooding her, chilling her lungs. "What are we going to do now?"

"Practically, or philosophically?"

"Do not jest," she sighs. "Even if you were to lay the spell on Gol, too, I would still know, and things would never feel the same."

"First of all," he says, gets up and clasps his back, wincing, "it might be a little too early for us to have this conversation." He pours them a large cupful of wine, offering it to her first. "Second, I have gifted Halima with a caravanserai to run, near Samarra. I told her she could take her pick of four other slaves, two maids and two eunuchs to go with her. Gol is among the ones she picked."

She shakes her head. "Not Gol. I am ordering you to manumit her, this very moment. She does not deserve to be a slave."

"As you wish. But now that she is a free woman, don't you think we should let _her_ decide whether she leaves with Halima or not?"

It will break her heart if Gol leaves; it will break her heart if Gol stays. Yet she knows she does not love her, and hates herself for that--is she as cold and as brutal as they say all man-souled women are, no better than a male rake? She shifts upon her cushions as she hands the cup back to Jaffar, hardly able to sit for her love-wounds, the welts Jaffar had left making themselves known on top of the soreness within. She is not thinking straight, but how could she, after all that had happened tonight? 

However, tonight has been a night of pleasure, not of worry; worry will have to await its turn. "You are right, Jaffar." She leans back into his embrace, curls up over his knees. "We shall see both of them tomorrow; let us not spoil tonight."

"That's the spirit," he grins and pulls her into a wine-drenched kiss. 

***

Yet the next day, Yassamin does not invite Halima to her chambers, only Gol. Ostensibly, it's for Gol to serve her, the way she has served her every night since her marriage to Jaffar. As Gol kneels behind her and brushes out her hair, she is filled with a profound sadness, an ache in her chest; she counts each stroke and wonders which one will be the last she will ever receive from Gol's hands. Gol's hands, oh, Gol's gentle, deft hands: she has to clasp them, kiss them. 

Gol stiffens, now far more shy than she had been last night. Yassamin turns to look at her and no, there is no more love-drunkenness to her at all, and Yassamin is gazing at but an ordinary young woman, her eyes soft but nervous. Jaffar had not cast a veil of forgetfulness over Gol or Halima, yet--

"Must you go?" she asks Gol--how strange that a queen should have to ask that, how preposterous! Yet her heart flutters in her chest.

Gol plucks at the hairbrush. "It was you who freed me, mistress."

"Do you not love me?" Yassamin says and wishes she hadn't. She sounds pathetic. Is she lying to Gol, to herself when she speaks of love? Is this still mere lust she feels, or but a different kind of love?

"I love you as a subject loves her queen," Gol says, smiling a little. 

Yassamin takes Gol's hands and presses them to her heart. "Yet you would leave me?" she says, softly.

"Do not ask me that, mistress. The decision was difficult enough. Please do not torment me."

"I would not see you suffer," Yassamin says, distantly, and on a sudden impulse, she kisses Gol's forehead. She recognises the flame she now feels inside of her chest for one different to the one Jaffar ignites within her, yet she still feels as if there is something missing, that this tale is not over yet. Yet, she could never be cruel to Gol. "Leave, then, if it's for the best."

Gol finally meets her eyes with hers and they are full of tears. "I am sorry, mistress. You have been so kind to me, the master has been so kind to me. But I cannot, in good conscience, reject what the Lord is now offering me."

"I am sorry, too," Yassamin says, hugging Gol tight against her chest, the way she has never hugged her before. Gol's breasts so soft and heavy against her own, the scent of her hair filling her nostrils, the way her braids gleam a dark red in the setting sun's light, oh--why does Gol have the power to make her light-headed, still?

"Please, do not fault me, mistress," Gol says, wiping her eyes. "Or mistake my feelings for you, for I speak the truth. I do not feel shame for last night; I do not want to escape you because of last night." She laughs to herself. "I enjoyed it, rather."

"I am glad," Yassamin says, kissing Gol's cheeks, then clasping her face, smiling at her until Gol smiles back. It's so, so difficult for her to find the words for what she is about to ask, but she asks nevertheless, steeling herself for a rejection.

"Gol. Would you spend one more night with me? Only you and I?"

"Oh, mistress," Gol says, lowering her gaze, laughing, sniffing back tears. When she looks at Yassamin again, her kohl is smeared but her smile is bright, brilliant, her eyes filled with delight. "I had been hoping you would ask me that." She clasps Yassamin's hand and kisses her palm. "I dreamt of kissing you," she whispers.

"Then dream no more," Yassamin says and presses her smile to Gol's.

***

Tonight, their lovemaking is slow, free of drugs, of pain, of magic; Yassamin finds that Gol is even sweeter now that her lust is tempered by a certain coyness, her face flushing scarlet as they undress each other, touch each other the way they couldn't last night. Yassamin marvels at Gol's body, taking her fill of her soft, pliant flesh, kissing it, nipping at it until Gol dissolves in giggles. And it is because this first time shall be their last time that they are both fiercely passionate: after a while, Gol responds to Yassamin's caresses with her own, pinning her down upon the bed, rutting against her.

Yassamin smiles, her mouth soft and wet from kisses, sweet from Gol's cunny, laughs as Gol rides her thigh. There is a girlish delight to their lovemaking, she finds, a pure, almost innocent simplicity to this that she did not find in Jaffar's, Theo's or Halima's arms, and she makes sure to enjoy it to the fullest. Whereas Jaffar is a dark, heady wine that makes her lose herself, Gol is like a mountain spring; clear, refreshing, light. She drinks from Gol's kisses, her mouth sweet from mint, basil, honey; she fills her hands with Gol's marvellous, heavy breasts, pushes up with her legs, shivering in pleasure as Gol's cunny glides open upon her thigh. Gol loses her balance, yelps and falls over her; they burst out laughing, tickling each other, and there is no more pain in Yassamin's chest, no more pain at all.

Gol blows her hair from her face and sniggers still. "What if the master should find us?"

Yassamin smacks her buttocks with both hands. "Do you know, I think he is watching us in his crystal this very moment. If he wanted to interrupt us, he would have done so already."

Gol buries her face in Yassamin's shoulder. "Merciful God, you must be right," she groans. 

"Did you hear that, my king?" Yassamin shouts into the room, still smiling. "You are impossible!" she cackles, and Gol falls down laughing with her, crying out an "Impossible!" herself, in hysterics. 

They kiss and they kiss until Yassamin pulls free of Gol, groaning from her need. "I would take you," she murmurs against her lips. "They never did let me pleasure you fully last night."

Gol laughs. "A grave error. After all, the object was to teach you about the love between women, was it not? Come, mistress; let us educate you."

Gol arranges some pillows so that she can lean back against them comfortably, then spreads her legs, pulling up her buttocks so that Yassamin has a clear view of her cunny, of her anus. "This is the best position, generally speaking. Everything is within easy reach, and one need not strain one's back."

"If one is receiving, I'm sure," Yassamin quips and slaps Gol's thighs. Yet she remembers how much Jaffar loves pleasuring her with his mouth and his hands--if he can do it for hours on end, so can she. And if he is indeed watching, she most certainly wants to prove herself to him. Thus, she lies down between Gol's legs, wraps her arms around her thighs and simply _adores._ Gol's cunny is so full, so beautiful now that it's wet, the folds of it parting, gleaming, and she can even see Gol clenching a little, as if beckoning her to come closer, to kiss her. Yet Yassamin tarries for a few more moments, wanting to commit this sight to memory. She feasts upon the sight as a man would--how right Jaffar had been when he had spoken to her of the true alchemist finding in themselves both the male and the female! 

And like a bridegroom, she now kisses Gol's cunny, feasts on her, sucks her sweetness into herself. And yet, she is still woman, still moans in delight as Gol cups the back of her head the way Jaffar does when she pleasures him with her mouth; her cunny still tightens between her legs and she rubs it against the bedcovers, rutting there, moaning into Gol in adoration.

"A little to the left," Gol whispers; "let your fingers remain at the entrance, there, there, just rubbing softly," she says, guiding Yassamin in this manner for long moments. And it is a revelation to find Gol's greatest pleasure spots are different to her own--the love manuals had always declared certain parts on a woman's body to be more sensitive than others, and some of these spots they do share, but again, she has to laugh at the men who wrote those books, thinking they knew everything. Whereas the greatest of lovers always asks, experiments with each woman to discover the caresses most pleasant to her, so as to drive her wild. Now, _that_ she had never learned in a book, but had been taught by Jaffar, and now Gol is furthering her knowledge, proving the superiority of this method. 

Thus, she caresses Gol only at her opening, with only two fingers, sucks upon her clitoris more lightly than she herself prefers to be sucked, and is rewarded with such a flood of sweetness that she thinks she might drown and right now, she would not care. And once Gol starts to truly flow into her mouth, her body opens further to Yassamin's hand, her cunny now swallowing two of her fingers to the knuckle. It is a strange feeling, a little more nauseating than she wishes it would be, the unevenness of the inner walls of the cunny startling her. Hers isn't smooth either, and dimly, she remembers hearing one could tell a woman's age by the feel of her cunny. The midwife of her father's harem had often had to do so when purchasing slave girls for the Sultan, ascertaining their age as she had ascertained whether they were virgin or not. Only an old woman would have a cunny smooth on the inside, she had said; a cunny whose walls felt like those of a pomegranate was the sign of a healthy young girl. Yet the ridges of flesh feel strange to her fingers from this angle, now that she is touching Gol deeper than she has ever been able to touch herself. She fears she might hurt Gol, and now it seems that she does: Gol gasps in discomfort when she accidentally grazes the root of her womb. 

"I am sorry," Yassamin mumbles, her jaw aching.

"You are doing well," Gol says, slurring a little, caressing Yassamin's hair. "Keep your fingers to the front, a little lower. Can you feel the softness there, just above the bone?"

Yassamin moves her fingertips a little. "Here?" 

Gol's eyes snap wide and suddenly, all hairs upon her body stand on end. "That--that's it. Oh. Please. Please, keep doing that, please, softly, oh, suck me, suck me--"

Yassamin does, massaging Gol tenderly but firmly, the way Jaffar does, merciless in her assault now that she knows Gol is nearing release. It would never do to stop while she was this close; that much she knows, having been furious when Jaffar had paused or changed rhythm just when she had been near the brink. And just like Jaffar, she now remembers the power of the eyes, the power of taking one with not just one's hands or mouth but with one's gaze, too: she captures Gol's eyes with hers, not freeing her until Gol starts to convulse, until her eyes flutter shut and she throws her head back on the pillows, jerking, screaming. The soft flesh underneath Yassamin's fingers swells and as she presses, Gol now sprays her mouth, so suddenly it makes her choke: yet she does not stop, pressing and pressing at her in a steady rhythm until she has wrung her out, until Gol wails and pulls her hand out, shaking, sore.

"My God, mistress--"

"I think it would only be fair if you called me Yassamin, now," she laughs and licks her lips, shaking so much herself that she collapses upon Gol, resting her head on her thigh.

"Yassamin," Gol grins and caresses her hair with shaking hands. "That was wonderful. _You_ are wonderful."

"Did I pass the test?"

Gol shakes her head. "I always used to envy the master for possessing you. Now I envy him even more."

Yassamin laces her fingers with Gol's and kisses her hand. "I am glad."

"I will repay you," Gol says, "if you but let me catch my breath, first."

"I shall pour us some wine."

***

"It's mad, quite mad," Gol says as she accepts the cup from Yassamin. "A queen serving a handmaiden? The world has turned upside down."

Yassamin stretches beside her and purrs. "You haven't heard the services I would request of you yet."

At that, Gol flushes even redder. Despite her glowing, happily debauched state, she now stares into her cup, her hair falling over her face. "You and the master frighten me sometimes," she murmurs. "The things I saw you do last night, the things he did to me last night--"

Yassamin leans closer and kisses Gol's breasts; the fear and unease she hears in Gol's voice, clearly mixed with arousal now pools hot in her cunny, pulsing between her legs. She knows the exact pleasures Gol is referring to, yet prompts her still, knowing what a potent aphrodisiac shame can be. "Which things would those be, my girl?" she asks, as sweetly, as mock-innocently, as knowingly as Jaffar himself when he is about to take that shame and turn it into the headiest, most intoxicating of pleasures. 

Gol shudders, and she passes the cup to Yassamin, her hands shaking a little. "What he made you taste, I--you were asleep when he finished with me, and what he did with his mouth after, oh--" she covers her face with her hand and mutters a prayer of purification under her breath. 

Yassamin chuckles into her wine, taking a deep sip before she answers, letting Gol squirm for a while before she sets down the cup and pulls her into her arms. "Did he drink his seed from you?" she asks, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, caressing Gol's hip with her hand.

Gol casts her lashes down and shudders once more. "Yes."

"And you liked it."

Gol looks around herself, angrily, at the invisible Jaffar surely watching them this very moment. "Not even Halima had degraded me in such a fashion. And my lady, his face, the way he smiled after, his mouth stained white--"

"Well, his teeth are quite crooked," Yassamin says and raises her eyebrow.

"I don't mean _that!_ "

"I apologise, Gol. I could not resist the temptation to tease you a little." She caresses Gol's cheek with the backs of her fingers. "It's a sight not unusual to me." And at that moment, she knows how to make Gol squirm even more. "In fact, I myself have performed that very act upon him after another man had taken him," she says.

Gol shivers, nauseous, but her hard nipples tell a different story; her hips jerk so that her cunny, her very womb must be stirring at the thought. Gol is about to say something, and from the looks of it, it's something horrified she is about to say. Yet, she loses her nerve instead. "What did it taste like?" she blurts.

"Not at all unpleasant," Yassamin says, and the way she says it, so smoothly, so easily makes her swell with pride, with dominance--oh, is this what Jaffar feels every time? "Although I find the sperm ruins the taste a little. If the recipient has but cleaned themselves well enough, the taste is actually quite pleasant. A little salty, a little musty, but not disagreeable."

Gol stares at her, her eyes wide. "I can't believe what I am hearing! A queen talking like--no, I have not heard of even sodomites praising such a depraved thing!"

"Says the woman who but last night held the entire fist of another's within herself," Yassamin says, breezily.

"But that's--"

"Not so different, I agree."

"It is."

"It is not, I assure you," Yassamin says and the time for arguments is over: she turns Gol over, spreads her buttocks and buries her tongue in her arse. 

Gol yowls, kicks and screams, but her hips are pressed into the bed: she sobs in protest, a protest shot through with delight as Yassamin takes the choice of shame away from her, and somewhere, Yassamin hopes Jaffar is masturbating so furiously he will spray his crystal. He had taught her all of this, how to take a woman and how to give her the pleasures she has dreamt of but has not dared ask for, how to ravish a woman the way she wants to be ravished. And she is right, right: underneath her, Gol moans from deep in her chest as Yassamin claws her buttocks apart and spreads her arse, licking her as deep as she can, pushing her face into her, mimicking the thrusts of penetration. Gol loves the pleasures of the arse, loves them as much as Yassamin does: it's only fair that Yassamin should now expand Gol's knowledge of them, teach Gol as Gol has taught her.

"Delicious," Yassamin hisses, smacks each of Gol's buttocks in turn, enjoying the little screams that snap in her throat. "And perfectly clean. You _have_ prepared yourself, have you not?"

Gol buries her face in the cushions. "I do each night, for Halima, but--"

Yassamin smacks her again. "What with? Only water?"

"She prefers to oil me herself, mistress."

Yassamin kisses the small of Gol's back and slides her hand to Gol's cunny, rubbing there softly. "Good. I wouldn't want any other flavours getting in the way this time," she murmurs. She leans over Gol to kiss her ear and deftly, easily slides two fingers from Gol's cunny straight into her arse. Gol jerks, and Yassamin but laughs. "Not when we are both going to taste this little thing tonight. Aren't we, my sweet?"

And at that, Gol screams, her cunny clenching so violently Yassamin can feel it through her arse, clenching so many times Yassamin cannot even tell if she is coming right now. "I shall take that as a yes," she purrs in her ear and continues to take her, rubbing her own cunny against the back of her hand to give force to her thrusts. She laughs, and it is at herself more than anything else: what has she become? It is as if she is a professional seducer of women, as bad as Halima or worse, and somewhere, she knows Jaffar is laughing, too. It is as if a new Yassamin has been born tonight, a new Yassamin shining, powerful, something Jaffar had tended to within her now bursting into bloom.

And thus, she leans over Gol once more, kissing the moans from her lips. "Do you like that?"

"Yes," Gol wails, and that wail pours down Yassamin's ears like wine, curls sweetly in her cunny like a caress.

"Then, turn around," she says, kissing Gol's ear. "As you were before." 

"But I was to serve you, mistress," Gol slurs as she turns around. Even as Yassamin spits on her fingers and returns to pleasuring her arse, she moans in protest. "I wanted to take you--"

"Oh, but you shall," Yassamin says, licking up her cunny, now wetter than ever before. "You see, I want you to do this to me in turn," she murmurs, more warmly, now. She kisses Gol's mouth sweet, soft, long; sucks upon her tongue and her lips until her cunny drips on her fingers, making them so slippery she can twist a third into her arse with ease. "And you _would_ take me like this, Gol, would you not?" she asks, nuzzles Gol's nose, Gol's eyes crossed from pleasure.

"Yes, mistress," she answers with a kiss, sucking upon Yassamin's tongue, her lips in turn. "Please," she says and spreads her legs wider, offering her hips. "Please continue."

"I shall," Yassamin says and kisses Gol's nose, then lies down between her legs to better lap at, suck at her cunny. 

And how swollen Gol is, now, as swollen as when Halima had been taking her with her hand, _oh._ Her cunny is so fat, so soft that Yassamin has to press her mouth into it, smear her face with it, moaning in abandon at the heat of it. And as she curls her fingers upwards, Gol trickles again, her entire groin now so wet that even Yassamin's hair is sticky, and even through her howls Yassamin keeps taking her, taking her. Only a few sucks upon her clitoris do it--she comes so violently against Yassamin's mouth that she must be hurting herself, the way her pubic bone now grinds against Yassamin's mouth, teeth. Yet Gol thrusts back onto Yassamin's hand, screaming and screaming, her arse loosening around her fingers as her orgasm reaches her peak so that each and every one of Yassamin's thrusts now makes a sloshing noise, outrageous, shocking, perfect. 

And Yassamin knows Gol isn't finished yet, knows it from the way Gol now mewls as she removes her hand. Yet Yassamin stops that mewl, stops it by pushing her wet hand into Gol's mouth, smearing her tongue with it while filling her arse with her other hand's fingers. And it is now that Gol screams and convulses so hard her back arches off the mattress, that she pulls the sheets off the bed, the pillows falling down and knocking the wine over, making a mess of the floor. Yet neither of them cares; Gol's tongue pulses against Yassamin's right hand, her arse pulses against her left and she screams herself into exhaustion upon them. And it is strange that it should break Yassamin's heart to feel this: to hold another person between her hands like this, impaled with pleasure and shame, penetrating her with ecstasy. It is a maddening power, the power of a true queen, and she chokes a little herself as she lets go, as she gathers Gol into her arms and soothes her with kisses, with embraces.

"You were beautiful," she murmurs, kissing Gol's mouth, "beautiful."

Gol shakes her head, her hair wet against Yassamin's shoulder. "You are mad, my lady. At this rate, I will not be able to take you, so will you have exhausted me."

"The night is yet young," Yassamin says and holds her tight against herself.

They rest amidst bouts of caresses, caress amidst bouts of rest; once night has fallen and they have lit the lamps, Yassamin finally allows herself to be taken. Jaffar has returned her jade cock and now she lies on her back, showing Gol how she likes to masturbate with it. But it feels much better when she lets Gol take her cunny with the toy: she is not as rough as Jaffar, knowing how such a toy feels inside of a woman's body, capable of hurting her more easily than a cock of flesh and blood ever could. Thus, her strokes are long, wonderful, luxurious. When Yassamin finally glides into orgasm, it's smooth, sweet, quiet; but her cunny pulsing against Gol's mouth, without ejaculation, without convulsions, only wonderful tremors coursing through her every limb.

"I would take your behind with my hand, also," Gol murmurs, kissing her hip, still holding the toy inside of her. 

Yassamin ruffles her hair. "I would you opened me with the jade first. It's so smooth I will not need oil, either."

Gol bites her lip and glances at the bedside table. "I have something else in mind that would ease the way."

Yassamin follows her gaze. "No, really. We will not be needing the cream yet."

Yet it is not the cream that Gol now picks up from the table, but a mirror. She offers the ivory handle to Yassamin. "A little bird told me you like to watch," she says.

Yassamin is so stunned that the jade toy slips out of her: both of them burst into laughter. 

"I rather suspect it was a starved cheetah you were talking to," Yassamin groans as Gol wets the toy once more, then presses it against Yassamin's arse. "What else did he tell you?" she asks as she fumbles with the mirror, as Gol starts to ease the toy inside of her with little nudges, pushes, dipping in and out of her. And now, finally, she can see herself: herself and Gol's pale little hands, the shock of her dark red, wet cunny and underneath it, the slick green jade sinking into her arse. Again, she clenches in shock, but this time, Gol holds the toy firmly in place.

"Oh, he told me about _this,_ " Gol grins and smears more of Yassamin's arousal on the toy, turning her strokes longer. "That you love to watch the way it goes in and out."

Yassamin laughs, out of breath. "Yes. Yes, I do," she moans, biting her lip as the toy slips so deep it hits the bliss-spot at the back of her womb. "Oh--yes, there. Turn it a little, so it slips past that point, and try and glide past it on every stroke, there, that angle exactly."

"You sound like an engineer."

Yassamin rolls her eyes and groans. "Please forgive me. I am married to one. But--oh, please." She brings her hand to her clitoris. "Keep doing that."

"To hear is to obey, mistress," Gol says, stealing a lick of her clitoris from between her fingers. "Do you know what else the cheetah told me?"

"Hmm?" Yassamin is now dizzy, watching tiny drops of her own fluids scattering upon the mirror, so furiously she is stroking herself.

"Look lower," Gol purrs. "He told me you liked seeing that, the _foam._ "

And Yassamin looks: the fluids Gol has used to slicken her arse are now thick from the constant strokes, streaking the toy with white. "Oh, God!"

"I must admit, it does look delicious," Gol says, innocently. "Would you like a taste, mistress?"

Yassamin moans from the bottom of her lungs, staring at the canopies. "Please."

"I think it's only fair I should taste it first," Gol says, pushing Yassamin's hand aside so that she can kiss her cunny, suck her clitoris for long moments, taking her with slower strokes, now.

Yassamin claws at Gol's hair, panting. "Is that what you wanted last night? To taste his cock from me?" she hisses, but knows that her taunts are feeble when it is she herself who is being tortured. "Is that what you are going to imagine; that it's his prick?"

"Oh, no, mistress," Gol croons, sliding the cock out gently so as not to waste any of the foam upon the sheets, then lifts it to her lips. "I shall taste it like it was _yours._ "

And as she closes her mouth around the cock, fellating it, shuddering at her own shamelessness, Yassamin feels herself unravelling. She slides her hand back to her clitoris, begging, pleading. "Oh, Gol, Gol, sweet Gol, please--"

"Yes, he told me about that, too," Gol says as she slides the cock back inside of Yassamin's arse, slick from her spit, now, gliding it past that heavenly spot over and over. "That you wanted to watch other girls do that, that it was your dream. Is that not so? Did I not just make that dream come true?"

"Yes, yes, yes--" but then Yassamin's voice breaks into screams, howls and she comes hard, fast, the orgasm hitting her like an earthquake and she no longer knows the meaning of gravity. Gol slides into her so deep that cold, electric flashes lick up and down her body, bathe her in cold sweat, but she does not care. "Yes!" she cries once more and falls tossing back onto the sheets, sticky and cold and hot and complete. Even as Gol pulls the toy out, she continues to shudder, her fingertips twitching upon the sheets, and it's only when Gol lies on top of her that she finally starts to calm.

"Well. He was not exaggerating, then," Gol says as she kisses her.

"Mhh."

"Do not think I am finished with you, however," Gol murmurs as she kisses her way down Yassamin's body, despite Yassamin's groans of protest.

And what follows is slower, darker, deeper: they sip what is left of the wine and return to pleasuring each other with their hands. Gol still tells her to hold the mirror, to watch herself gaping as Gol stretches her arse with her hands, still with but their own fluids, the minutes stretching into hours as she opens her in this way. Gol is eager to conquer Yassamin fully, and Yassamin leans back and lets her, trembling in slower, subtler orgasms as Gol lifts more slickness, more foam from her arse for Yassamin to lick off her fingers. The stretch is so wonderful, sinking her into such a trance state that she, no longer in a rush towards orgasm, finds herself merely analysing the sensations, the textures of the different fluids Gol offers her: spit, sweat and cunny are familiar to her, but underneath them, she senses a thicker slickness, that of her own guts, not unlike phlegm but oddly tasteless. Yet that tastelessness is a relief--she feared it was something worse Gol was now smearing upon her tongue, yet even the horror of that makes her quake in near-orgasm. She can no longer speak, but sends a prayer to Jaffar, hoping that he is indeed watching, invites him to share in this rapture she is now floating in.

And she fancies she hears a dim echo, feels the tiniest of sparks in her heart; she cannot see Jaffar's face, cannot hear his voice, he remaining distant but present, and this makes her sob in joy. The mirror falls from her hand and she merely lies there, barely hears the sound of the cream jar opening, barely breathes as Gol begins to ease her entire hand inside of her arse. And yes, entire, entire: Yassamin welcomes her greedily, hungrily, even if her body is still and Gol knows not to break her trance, twisting four fingers and a thumb inside easily after such long play. She is as deep as Halima had been last night, and Yassamin groans from the bottom of her belly, desperate for more.

"Please," is all she can rasp out, cold sweat now breaking out upon her skin once more. She tries to caress Gol's face, but her hand falls limp upon the cushions, listless.

"Shh," Gol whispers to her with such love that she fancies she can hear Jaffar in there, too, whispering to her through her mind, guiding Gol's hand as she twists, twists and she is in.

She is in. Another twist, and Yassamin can feel the bones of Gol's wrist against the sore, violated ring of her anal muscles, and now she cannot stop sobbing, crying, tears running down her temples and into her ears. Her trance breaks and she shivers, jerks; but Gol is there, her mouth sweet upon her cunny, her eyes so blue, so loving, so sweet.

"I love you," Yassamin sobs, and it is as much at Jaffar as it is at Gol, both of them now embodiments of pure pleasure to her, Gol surely some houri escaped from Paradise--

"And I love you, my mistress," Gol says, and Yassamin knows it to be true, knows it to be what she feels this very moment, even if they were to never see each other again. And if this is to be the only night they do this, does it not mean that this moment will be forever, that this love will be forever, crystallised in but this one night, never tarnished by what comes after?

Yassamin falls slack once more, no longer caring if she will come or not. A normal orgasm would feel like nothing, now, nothing compared to the enormity of this pleasure, and she swims in it, sinks into it, dissolves in it, letting Gol caress her on the inside. And within her heart, Jaffar's laughter, Jaffar's chuckle, Jaffar's caress and a promise that he shall do it to her, too, oh, he shall, his hand even bigger than Gol's: and it is at that that the flame in her heart explodes into light and blinds her, turns her entire world white.

She does not know when she sleeps, when she wakes, when she is taking Gol or when Gol is taking her; the moon travels from horizon to horizon as they take turns pleasuring each other. Later, she will remember long kisses, licks, tongues deep inside cunnies, arses; sights both sweet and grotesque reflected in mirrors. Her mouth on Gol's cunny, Gol's mouth on hers, each of them with a hand fully inside the other's guts, massaging each other slowly, a neverending circle of pleasure, of love. 

***

When she wakes up, it is morning and the bed is empty by her side. There is but the impression of a female body upon the mattress, and before her eyes are even fully open, they flood with tears. She curls up in a ball, tight, tight, like a pained animal and weeps from the bottom of her heart. She knows this is for the best, remembers how it is only Gol's absence that can perfect her memory, but she is entitled to her sorrow nevertheless, is she not? Gol will remain inside of her forever, now, and is it not pain that produces a pearl inside a shell? So she cries and cries to refine that pain, to honour it, cries until she can cry no more, her nose leaking, her stomach cramping from her sobs.

And it is then that she feels Jaffar's arms around herself, the warmth of his bare skin upon hers, the sheer love with which he now holds her against his heart. He says nothing, only holds her, and she loves him for his silence, loves him for respecting her sorrow. 

"Hold me tighter," she whispers, wet, pitiful, hoarse. "Crush me against yourself. Please, husband."

And he embraces her tight, so tight her bones creak, until she can barely breathe at all, until her pulse slows down and she falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Jaffar remains quiet and gentle that day, letting Yassamin's sorrow breathe. She sleeps in her own bedchamber instead of his, and even if the maids have changed the bedclothes, she fancies she can still smell Gol's perfume upon the pillows. But now she is too tired to cry, yet too agitated to rest; she wishes she had gone to sleep in Jaffar's arms instead. But now it's well past midnight and the full moon is high in the sky; it's far too late for her to crawl into his bedchamber without waking him up. There is a pain in her hips, a familiar pain now made greater because of her soreness: her bleeding may start any moment, tomorrow or the day after, and that means she will not be able to make love to Jaffar for a whole week. A single night of rest is one thing, but an entire week without his embraces, especially now, oh, Lord--she buries her face in the bedcovers and groans.

The next evening, she insists on having him all to herself. She is not yet bleeding, thank the Almighty, but the overload of dark humours in her body combined with her grief are enough to drive her mad. She arrives at his quarters well before their usual appointed time; he is still at his writing table, finishing his paperwork for the night.

"You are the best physician I know," she says and lays her head in his lap. "I have come to see you as a patient."

He rolls up the last of his documents and seals it with wax, then turns to her. "And what ails you tonight, my love?" he murmurs and caresses her breast, but stops once she winces. "Is that how thoroughly she mauled you?" he laughs.

She pulls his hand back onto her breast and shakes her head. "No. But perhaps you should," she says, with such seriousness that he cannot mistake her meaning. "How many strokes are there left?"

"If you are ill and in pain, I hardly think this is the time--"

"Jaffar." Determined, she holds his gaze. "I would have you exorcise the humours."

"And the ghost of Gol, I suppose," he sighs. 

"I would not forget her so much as I would rather let go of the grief. It's the time of the month that's making it so unbearable."

He undoes her veil so that he can caress her hair. "Would you not have me take you instead?" 

She kisses his hand and smiles. "After, if you do your job well."

Now, he bursts into a warm chuckle. "And are you sure it is the grief talking, and not the heat in your womb? You are _insatiable_ every full moon."

She rocks her hips coquettishly. "The heat also needs exorcising."

"Slavedriver," he groans and pulls her into an embrace. "I shall administer your medicine, all right, but no more than fifteen strokes tonight."

"Or until the grief is gone," she whispers into his shoulder.

He pulls back, his eyes full of sadness. "You do mean it," he says, and it's not a question.

"Feel it," she says and lays his hand on her temple.

He looks into her eyes and she feels a hum, a slight dizziness. He peeks inside her mind so fast she can barely feel him, but when he withdraws, his eyes are filled with tears. "Oh," he says, staring, unseeing; he blinks and the tears break free, rolling down his cheeks as he regards her.

She kisses his palm. "So, now you know the extent of it."

He takes her hand and presses it to his cheek in turn. "My lady, that is not why I am weeping," he laughs, swallows, smiles. "It's at--" he shakes his head, blinks away fresh tears. "It is at the extent of your love for your old fool of a husband."

"Oh, Jaffar," she says, embracing him tight, laughing into his velvets. "Did you not feel it before?"

"This is the first time I have done it from this distance, you silly girl; of course I hadn't," he laughs into her hair. "There is a difference between looking at a picture and being in it."

"I would gladly have you there again," she says. "But first, promise me the cane." 

He laces his fingers with hers and kisses her softly. When he draws back, his eyes are full of adoration, of awe. "I promise."

***

They begin with her tied by the wrists to one of the bedposts, naked, facing him. He has shed his hesitation along with most of his clothes: he has undressed himself to the waist, pacing gracefully across the carpet in his bare feet, whistling.

"It's bad luck to whistle," she says, squirming in her bonds because she knows the sight brings him pleasure.

He twirls the cane in his fingers and grins, a sight that never fails to make her cunny tighten. "And do you know why they say that, my child?"

She stutters a little. "It... well, it attracts malicious djinn, does it not?"

He swishes his cane past her face, then leans in for a leer. "And am I not the master of all djinn? See, I thought I would have punished but the grief for so tormenting you, but it looks like I may have to punish you, too, for insulting me so."

He is now leaning so close his eyes are crossed--he is smiling like such a fool that she bursts into laughter and so does he, kissing her for a long while. Despite the presence of the cane, it is a kiss that fills her entire chest with warmth, makes her glow with love, happiness. "As long as you do not bring djinn into the bedroom, husband."

"Now, that is where even _I_ will draw the line," he murmurs against her lips and pulls back, taking a few long strides to show off, making his cane whistle through the air. "I have my hands full with my little demoness, right here."

He has not called her that in a long time, and it makes her heart swell with joy. He sounds so happy, so sweet; he has not even sunk into the role of the cruel beast, yet, but this is fine, more than fine: the way his eyes glimmer in the evening light, the way their corners now crinkle with joy are a wonder to behold. And the way he smirks at her--now she knows for a fact that no one else can make her toes curl with such delight.

"Discipline me, then," she grins. 

He but tilts his head and quirks his eyebrow, proceeding to tickle her stomach with the cane until she screams, shrieks, flails from her laughter so much that the entire bedframe creaks. "Stop!"

"You'll bring the canopy down!" he scolds her, glancing at it, but as he looks back at her, he is laughing, too. He tucks the cane underneath his arm and takes her by the hips, holding her still. "Are you ready?" he asks, nuzzling her face, as if he is barely restraining himself from kissing her.

"Deal with me as you please, master," she says, knowing exactly what those words do to him, loving the flash of heat in his eyes as he hears them.

"Very well, then." He takes the cane and twirls it, then raises it.

Reflexively, she closes her eyes, but the first sensation she feels is not that of his cane: it is that of his tongue flicking into her cunny. For Jaffar has dropped to his knees and is now spreading her legs, lapping at her, chuckling into her. 

She shrieks and kicks and groans. "You bastard!"

He presses his face deep into her slit and hums in exaggerated delight. "You requested torture, my love," he murmurs, then sucks on her clitoris until she squirms and wails again, only letting go when she makes the bed creak in an alarming fashion once more. "Did you think I was going to let you off easily?" he says as he gets up and licks his lips.

"I think you are a swine-molesting infidel dog," she groans, tossing her hair from her face.

He shakes his head and snaps her hair aside with the cane. "You have such a wild imagination, my dear. Would you have me bark next? Or is it that you would wish to oink the creed backwards at me? Is that your new perversion?"

_"Jaffar!"_

He laughs from the bottom of his belly and takes a few steps back to avoid her kicks, twirling his cane once more. "All right, all right, my demoness. Now, turn around and stand very still."

"At last," she groans, but as soon as she says it, he strikes her across the hips with such force she has to clutch the bedpost from sheer shock. He gives her room for but one breath, then follows with four further strokes across her buttocks, crisscrossing the old welts. She had not counted on that: they have played this game so rarely that the increased pain takes her by surprise. Yet, she cannot make a noise, only keeps on clutching the post, her knuckles white.

He draws the tip of the cane up and down her spine, waiting for her breathing to even. "The next five will be across your back. I refuse to leave permanent marks, but I advise you to bite down on a piece of curtain nevertheless."

"Why?"

He walks up to her and picks up a piece of the red velvet, then offers it to her mouth. "You will bite into your tongue otherwise."

And from the look in his eyes, she knows he speaks from experience, not from merely witnessing it, but from his own torture at the hands of her father's guards. The playfulness has gone from his face: therefore, she does not resist but takes the offered velvet, lets Jaffar stuff her mouth with it. When he moves behind her again, she closes her eyes and shivers; yet, she is wet already, the strokes upon her buttocks having dissolved the menstrual pain in her hips with their heat. And as he waits and waits, her cunny tightens again, again, for each swish of his cane, as if he knows that is exactly what the sound does to her. And he must know, oh, he must--she feels that strange dizziness again, Jaffar linking his mind with hers, and she feels a weight at the front of her cunny, a heat, a tightness-- _oh._ She need not turn her head to know what it is: she can now feel Jaffar's erection, the pulse of blood flooding his balls just as her own blood now fills her cunny. 

She shivers again, reels at the alien pleasure, wants to moan her delight, but it is then that the first blow lands, blinding her with pain. And it is Jaffar who cries out louder than she does: he pants as he lays his strokes over her shoulders, over the tops of her hips, turning her vision into but flashes of light. She loses count after the third, the flashing turning into a solid white, white, stretching into eternity like a desert, white sand, white snow, white--

She does not know how long she hangs there, limp, lifeless, but when her consciousness returns, Jaffar is holding her. He slouches behind her on his knees, his head resting against her back, his arms shaking as he embraces her thighs. He could have severed the connection, now, could have freed himself of her pain completely, yet he holds onto her, feels her within and without, swims in the pain with her, the torturer become the tortured. Whether it is because of his compassion, or his love--oh, whatever he has done this for, it breaks her heart. 

Yet she does not spit out the velvet to speak, but draws him out of his trance by pushing out her pain and showing him her pleasure instead, focusing upon it: the wonderful heat his blows have left upon her body, the soreness of her breasts and her hips now blossomed into full arousal, the thrum of blood in her flushed cunny. _Please, beloved,_ she thinks and she knows he can hear it, knows he is smiling from the way his moustache now scratches the small of her back. Soon, that laughter turns into a kiss, two, a dozen up her spine, and finally he is on his feet, hugging her from behind.

"Ready for the last five?" he asks as he pulls the velvet from her mouth, kissing the roughness from her lips.

"Only if you will not peek this time," she smiles against his mouth. "I would not have you spare me."

He picks up the cane and turns her around. "I have stepped outside of you already, as it happens," he says. "It's hard to concentrate on one's work when one is inside two bodies at once. Yours was _very_ distracting," he leers.

She cannot resist a lazy squirm, teasing him with her breasts and her hips. "Then, finish, and we can distract each other again," she smirks.

"Gladly." 

His next stroke is but a tease across her breasts. She thinks of scolding him for it being little more than a slap, but then he hits her belly and her thighs with such force that she doubles over, twists in her bonds, sobbing from the pain. Before she can even stand up, he lays one more hard, merciless stroke upon her buttocks, tosses the cane aside and then he is upon her: he lifts her by the hair and takes her mouth in a savage kiss. He fumbles as he frees her hands, as he frees himself from his shalwars, and in but moments, he is inside of her. He lifts her onto himself, slides inside of her so fast that she shouts into his shoulder, but then they are upon the bed, the welts on her back stinging sweetly as he presses her into the mattress.

"Jaffar--" she cries, patting at his back, hugging him to herself, shouting as he begins to thrust into her with force. 

He growls, but keeps on moving inside of her. "Am I hurting you?"

Yes, he _is_ hurting her, a little, his cock so enormous inside of her as it hits the root of her swollen womb, mixing the pleasure with sharp stabs of pain. Yet this pain is exactly what she needs, and from the way he trembles on top of her, from the way his eyes stare into hers, she knows he is close. Why should she deny him? She wants him like this, needs him like this, a Jaffar driven mad from his love for her, from the love he has felt in her heart. So she but takes his mouth, takes it so violently their teeth clash and wraps her legs around his waist. "Don't stop," she pants into his mouth between sucks upon his tongue, "don't you dare."

"I _can't_ stop--" he moans into her mouth, "you feel too wonderful, your cunny feels too wonderful, your cunny, _fuck_ \--"

"Come inside of me," she moans back, clawing at his hair, bunching it in her fists. "I want to feel it, want to feel you flooding me, please, please, husband," she babbles, delirious. 

But he is doing so already, bellowing, clutching her against himself as his hips beat into hers, his cock slipping in his sperm. "I love you, I love you," he keens and keeps on undulating into her, flushed red all over, finally collapsing with a choked sob. "I am sorry, so sorry. I did not mean to," he mumbles, panting against her shoulder. "I did not mean to."

She pushes him onto his side so that he slips out of her and embraces him, nuzzling him. "I wanted you to," she says, kissing his nose. "It was a most potent medicine."

"I am glad," he slurs, his eyes closed, his arm limp around her waist. "Your cunny, I--" he groans, still short of breath. "When I am inside of you, I sometimes don't know if I am in Paradise or Hell."

"That was Paradise," she laughs and nudges his softening cock with her knee. "Just wait until I show you the torments I have in mind for him."

She expects for him to groan, expects him to call her a slavedriver once more, but instead, he gathers her in his arms and hugs her tight, his laughter a pard's purr against her chest. "He looks forward to his punishment."

They lie there for long moments, but resting in each other's arms, dipping into kisses and caresses now and then. She loves this, loves these rare nights when they can set hours upon hours aside for love-play, for pleasure alone. Lord knows he must have postponed and delegated a mountain of work to his secretaries just to snatch a few extra hours with her, so she rewards him for this with her hands, her mouth, loving him with her entire body. She lies on top of him, massaging him, tasting the salt of his skin, drinking in the adoration and joy in his eyes, in the softness of his sighs. 

He returns her caresses, and each time he moves her into a different position, he does so with a caress, also: he turns her onto her back by wrapping her legs around his waist and taking her breasts with his hands, nuzzles her legs open with soft kisses upon her cunny. Yet even as she nears climax, she is not satisfied: she gifts him with caresses of her own until they lie upon the bed so that she is straddling him, facing his legs. And there they lie, each kissing the other's sex, she kissing his lips with those of her cunny, swallowing his hardening cock into her mouth. 

He spreads his legs wide and moans, breathless from pleasuring her with his mouth so. "I take it back," he groans. "It is your mouth that is Hell."

"Well, then," she murmurs as she cups his sack in her hand, lifting his balls, kissing them, too, loving the way his cock drags slick against her cheek. "Now you get to enjoy two hells at once." For she knows and he knows both of them find it difficult to reach release in this position: it is a torment they love inflicting upon each other to heighten the pleasure of what follows.

He presses a slick thumb inside her arse and hisses. "What shall we call _this_ place, then?"

She cries out and stills, all of her stiffening from a sudden, hideous pain. She has never denied him sodomy before, but as his thumb sinks inside of her to the root, it is _agony,_ a stabbing pain completely unlike the heat his cane had brought. All the horror stories she has heard of sodomites, of how easy it would be to slay someone through but a small wound in the gut--oh, all of them flood her mind at once, and as much as she wants him, she has to allow her body to heal first. "Jaffar. Mercy."

He ceases immediately, sounding a little hurt. "I apologise. I did not realise." He covers her cunny in kisses, sucks, soft licks. "Let me make it up to you."

"Nothing would please me mo--oh!" she yelps as he pushes her down so that she is now lying down upon her stomach, he assuming a new position behind her, embracing her buttocks and burying his face in her cunny. He but hums, sighs in contentment, quick to forget the sodomy, it seems, when he is allowed his other favourite perversion instead. 

She laughs at him over her shoulder, her heart light. "Keep doing that."

"I had no intention of stopping," he says and slaps both of her buttocks. "I promised to take away the pain Gol left; am I allowed to kiss you better at least?"

"How unselfish of you," she laughs, then giggles, shrieks as he licks at her arse softly. "It tickles!"

"Oh, I am _so_ sorry," he says, spreading her buttocks with his hands, pressing his tongue so deep into her arse it slips inside the folds, curling it there. The pressure of it is far from painful, allowing her the pleasure of sodomy without its pain, making her cunny clench helplessly against his chin. Her breath stops in her throat at how good it feels, at him taking her this way, his gentle spreading of her, the way he shamelessly licks at each ridge of flesh, bathing her in his saliva. And to know that he is not doing this merely to please her, to know that he is drunk on that taste, to feel him moan into her body so that he is now taking her with his very _voice,_ his groans and his sighs vibrating in her guts, in her womb, oh--

"There," he says and licks his lips as he pulls back. "Does that feel better?"

Her only reply is an incoherent moan. 

"Good," he murmurs, spitting on her arse so he can get deeper. "You taste so wonderful, God--"

And she wants to show him how wonderful he feels, too, but he is there before her: just as she slides the feel of his tongue into his mind, he slips the rich, musty taste of her arse onto her tongue. They moan one second apart, and she can feel Jaffar rutting into the sheets, the drag of the silk against his cock, his arse clenching as he feels the pleasure of his own licks. And she feels the softness of her own buttocks upon his cheeks, sees how beautiful she is, clenching herself at the inner sight of her own anus now gleaming pink, her mouth flooding with the salt-sweetness of her taste, the joy it brings to him. No, not a mere joy, an _obsession:_ he wants open her over and over, to bury himself inside of her, to die inside of her--but it is then that he feels the pain inside her body and restrains himself, and that breaks her heart.

So she breaks the connection for but a moment and looks at him over her shoulder, her voice soft with love. "Jaffar. Would you take me again?" She rocks her buttocks. "I would not want you to rub yourself raw on those sheets, when there is something much slicker here you could be thrusting into," she laughs.

He looks up at her, his eyes glazed from lust, his mouth gleaming from her. "I never knew I would look forward to visiting Hell so much," he says and smacks her arse. "Wait but a moment, my lady."

She smiles and buries her face in her arms as he gets ready, now using cream to ease himself into her cunny. "There," he sighs and settles into position. "I am not hurting you now, am I?" he says, wiping the rest of the cream into the cleft of her buttocks, stroking her arse softly. 

"You feel wonderful," she slurs, the pleasure of him so immense she might come at any moment, now, and she sends that thought to him. He picks it up and laughs, then rolls his hips a little and _tinkles._

Yassamin groans. "You didn't."

"I am afraid I did," he purrs, then rolls his hips and tinkles once more. "And it's not all selfish this time, my love. Can you feel it?"

But as he passes the feel of the egg to her, her eyes roll back in her head and she clutches the sheets, covered in cold sweat: the pleasure is so sudden, so intense she thinks she might die there and then. "Is that what it feels like for a man?" she gasps, stunned. She knew of the pleasure men received from the stimulation of the prostate, but had no idea what it would feel like to own one, to have one's spine turned into liquid honey. "I don't believe it, I--" she gulps for breath, staring into the distance.

"You mean it feels better?"

She pulls on the sheets and lifts her hips up to meet his, groaning, shaking from being doubly penetrated at once. "That is--Jaffar--it feels--"

"Yes, wonderful, I agree," he laughs. "I think I shall wear it every time, now," he says, speeding up his thrusts. 

But she can barely hear him over her own wails, over her cunny now dripping each time the egg presses upon his prostate, trickling each and every time he spurts a little into her cunny. "Please, don't stop, please," she moans, throwing herself back onto his thrusts like some wild animal, clawing, patting at the bed in hysterics. 

"Oh, so you are _that_ close?" he chuckles, slipping a hand to her cunny. "Might I help?"

She rubs her face against the mattress. "Please, Jaffar; please."

He chuckles and kisses her neck. "Now, I want you to give it all to me, my child," he says, more stern, now, far less playful, Jaffar the beast purring into her ear. "All the pleasure, and what is left of the pain; offer it to me in full. Do you understand?"

And the command with which he says it makes her very soul shiver around his, now that he is penetrating it, too; makes her ripple in worship around the Jaffar enthroned within the very centre of her being. "I understand," she wails, and as submission itself, as surrender itself she flows into Jaffar, as ecstasy she crashes into him, endless, endless. She flows into him, through his blood and his sap and his sperm, hardening his cock further, filling his balls further, filling him with herself. 

He but growls, takes her by the hair, his breath catching in his throat as he feels what this violence does to her, sparks bursting from her scalp into his fist and back again. "I repeat: do you understand?" And he knows she does, but he wants to swim in it, swim in the waves of her joy now peaking higher and higher with each of his thrusts. He revels in her, inundates himself as she flows into him, sinks underneath his power, sobs from the pleasure he is giving her. 

"Yes, _master,_ " she cries, the word vibrating between them, and now she can feel it in his belly, in his nipples, in his throat, a glorious whiteness bursting into bloom inside his head. Whiteness like the sperm rising and rising within him, the egg massaging him until he is but sap itself, ready to erupt, ready to take her, drown her.

"Then get out of my head, girl," he snaps, but he can hear his smile. "Give it to me. Do it."

And she unravels the bolts of her pleasure far and wide, swallows the heat and width and weight of his cock inside of her very viscera, gives every shining, glowing atom of herself up to her beloved, her beloved, her beloved. Jaffar, her heathen god, the god she is now sacrificing herself to, all of her ablaze: she becomes but golden, melodious cries, but waves of water-of-fire-of-pleasure-of-pain-of-pleasure, but swirls of ecstasy wrapping themselves around him, pulling him into herself, _take me, take me, take all of me, drink from me, bathe in me._ She becomes, no, she _is_ but a hot cunny, pulling him within herself with her contractions, her very womb sucking in the sperm he now shoots into her, hungry, greedy, his greed her greed, his urge to ravish her equal to her need to surrender herself unto him. 

And she gives it all to him, lets him feel each soft splash of his seed inside of her, each tremor of her womb, the brutal grind of his hipbones against the welts upon her arse. And she gives him that spot, too, that very spot he now moves his fingers to, the very one on her clitoris that makes her swirl out, pour out, wet him as he wets her: each and every spray from her cunny upon his balls, her thighs; the way his groans against her back make her toss in convulsions of sun-dappled delight.

 _Husband, husband, husband,_ she cries in her mind, or perhaps she cries it out loud, for her throat hurts as she collapses, pulling him down with herself onto the mattress. She groans, clasping him to herself so that he will never be parted from her, so that he will stay within her forever, their sexes but one sex, their bodies one flesh, never two, never again apart, never. And into this oneness, this satedness she sinks, sinks until she can feel no more.

***

She awakens when he returns to wipe her with a damp, cool cloth.

"Mmm?"

"You have bled a little, my love," he says, kissing her cheek and bringing the towel to her thighs.

She flushes from shame; he has never seen her in an unclean state before. "Oh. I am sorry, Jaffar. I should leave."

"Nonsense. I am not scared of a little blood."

"But it's bad blood."

"No; I should say your bleeding is healthy," he says, finishes mopping her and tosses the towel aside. "I am your physician, not an imam."

She is still astonished when he climbs into bed with her and embraces her from behind, his hand on her belly. "You are strangest of men to so embrace pollution."

He winces a little at the statement. "Everything that is called polluting used to be sacred in some tradition or another; every magician knows this. Did you know there are still heathen magicians beyond the Sindh who make love to menstruating women, so as to sup upon their magical powers?"

"Magical powers?" she lets out a barking laugh. "It's more akin to a curse."

He laughs and strokes her belly. "How is your pain?"

"My heart and my mind are at rest," she murmurs, kissing his hand. "The only pain is in my belly--and not caused by you," she hastens to add.

"Let me relieve you of it nevertheless," he says and leaves her to rummage for medicine in his bedside cabinet. He lifts out two vials, one green, one brown. "Medium or strong?"

She takes his hand and brings it to her belly. "You be the judge of that."

Jaffar's eyes fly wide and he blanches, snatching his hand away, shuddering a little. "My God." His hands tremble so that the bottles clatter together loudly as he sets them back on the table. "This calls for opium."

"You are such a weakling, Jaffar," she laughs. "Is this what made you collapse from but five strokes?"

"I can now see why they say women are able to withstand more pain than men," he murmurs as he measures the opium with a spoon and mixes it with water, then hands the cup to her. "Soon I will have no pride left in my manhood."

She swallows the medicine in one gulp. "Then take pride in being Jaffar," she says as she passes the cup back to him. "I would rather have a man who is half woman than all warrior," she says as she curls up spooned in his arms once more. 

He hugs her tight against himself and groans happily, kissing her hair. "I meant what I said in the observation room, by the way."

"Refresh my memory."

"In my own time, wife. It is not an easy thing to say. There is still some manly warrior left in me."

"There most certainly isn't, but I shall humour you--stop!" she squeals as he tickles her.

He rocks himself against her and claws at her belly, half-growling, half-laughing in her ear. "Let me finish."

"Go on, then, my cheetah," she chuckles, turning around in his arms. "Tell me."

He strokes her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "You know how we pray to God to keep us, even if we are but sinners and fools. And how he gives us of his bounty, far beyond our due. I thought it was but a pretty phrase, to make sure people remained grateful even for the smallest of things. Until I married you, that is." He presses his forehead against hers and kisses her hand. "Even if I offered prayers my every waking hour from now on until my death, I could never thank God enough for what he has given me in you." 

She brings his hand to her own lips and despite the pain in her belly, a sob escapes her chest. "I am sorry for calling you my punishment, Jaffar. You must know I feel equally blessed to have you, no matter what names I might call you in the heat of passion."

"I know," he laughs and kisses her on the mouth. "I saw. Besides, I like it when you call me names." She grins mischievously at that, yet he presses a finger to her lips. "But not now."

She kisses his finger. "Fair enough, my beast."

He quirks his eyebrow. "I shall allow you that," he says and smacks her on the arse. "Harlot."

She yelps, laughs. "That is _not_ a good way to silence me, and you know that."

"I thought as much," he grins and sinks his hands into her hair. "I much prefer this method, myself," he says and takes her mouth with the deepest, sweetest, most loving of kisses.


End file.
